


Rending Time

by leathansparrow



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Cardverse, M/M, Multi, Political Drama, Slow Burn, War Themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:03:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 39
Words: 47,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4759220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leathansparrow/pseuds/leathansparrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of war, a Queen struggles to accept the profound changes to his world, a soldier grapples with loss and responsibility, and a nation tries desperately to recover under the looming shadow of a fanatical enemy.</p><p>A Cardverse variation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The War Settles

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written scene by scene, and thus chapters and sections will be of extremely varied lengths. No relation to any established cardverse headcanons, though some fandom headcanons may apply.

Our story begins at the end of a battle. A war has waged through the four kingdoms for five years, leaving devastation in its wake. The King of Hearts, in his mad race to conquer the world, has been defeated at last. The Kingdom of Diamonds is free, reclaimed from the grip of Hearts' armies. In the north, the Kingdom of Clubs lies silent. There is talk of revolution, of a new order in the north. Only rumors explain their sudden withdrawl, leaving its neighbors to fend for themselves against Hearts’ wrath. 

At last, the Kingdom of Spades takes the deepest of breaths, and finally allows itself to take in what this war has cost them. Alone in the end, they have sacrificed greatly to defeat the raw might of Hearts. Their armies are in retreat, at rest, and their nation, devastated, may soon have its chance to recover. Perhaps, Spades’ Queen thinks, it really is over. Arthur Kirkland, Queen of Spades, has wondered for five years whether this day would ever come. He hoped it would come at less of a cost, and yet he cannot find himself surprised that it did not. He feels the distress of the people of Spades rattling in his head, the quiver of the magic of their land that tells him that his King is gone. 

Dead. And here he is left caring for the child that was his Ace, the poor sweet boy that was his King’s Heart. Dark has streaked the child's coloring. His power stripped from him with his King’s loss, he looks desolate, hopeless, and broken. Arthur pities him, though he can do nothing for the child. With the loss of his King, he is now fated to travel the world with the wisps of his power clinging to him. Arthur is only grateful the child hasn’t suffered the one worse fate he could. A Black Joker’s fate is far more terrible. 

Arthur wishes he could offer the child more. Peter is young, has been young for the thirteen years since his selection, and he has retained his innocence in such a way that Arthur can not explain or understand. 

His King is dead. 

That thought echoes in Arthur's head. The Will of the Kingdom, their tie to the Kingdom's heart, its desire, is dead. He gave himself to destroy the King of Hearts. It took him and Hearts' Jack, both of them, to manage that impossible feat. It has ripped a hole in the Court that echoes in Arthur's heart and leaves him empty. Arthur cannot even imagine—

It is too soon for him to mourn. It is too soon for him to process the loss. The Kingdom reels, torn, mad with grief and anger. Hearts’ capital is devastated from the battle of two Kings. Only Hearts' Queen remains alive, and Arthur does not know what to do with him. 

They were friends once. Arthur cannot reconcile their friendship with Hearts' invasion, with the devastation of Diamond and the brutality of the war Hearts brought against them. He remembers Kiku's magic against his, the pain in his fingertips, long-fingered creatures strangling him in the dark, and the mad light in the Queen's eyes. Mad, desperate, wrong. His once-friend clings to the edges of life, wrapped in a spell of Arthur's own creation. He is safely captured, and yet Arthur cannot make his peace with it.

Not until he can be sure it is his friend who will awaken to him, and not the monster Kiku became in the wake of his King's madness. King and Queen, they are connected, Arthur knows. The Will follows the Mind, and the Body with it. The Body is instinct, the core of the nation, the power of the nation, and in the end Hearts' Jack had the instinct left to strike the madness at his own heart, but the Mind. 

The Mind and the Will, Queen and King, they are too close. If the King falls to madness, it can only follow that the Queen will too. Together they can ruin nations. Together they have the power to wreck the world.

Kiku was almost that far gone. Arthur thanks everything that he was able to get to him first. It will be years before Hearts recovers from its own madness, but there is time. The war is over. At last, Arthur breaths the relief he has prayed he can for years. The war is over.

And Spades has no King.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Kingdoms of Time: Post-Hearts' War Profiles
> 
> Spades:  
> King: Deceased  
> Queen: Arthur Kirkland (England)  
> Jack: Wang Yao (China)  
> Ace/Shaded Joker: Peter Kirkland (Sealand)
> 
> Hearts:  
> King: Deceased  
> Queen: Honda Kiku (Japan)  
> Jack: Deceased  
> Ace: Deceased


	2. Prediction

The Will of the people is inevitable. When a King falls, another will take their place. Somewhere, someday in the land of Spades, a young man or woman will turn in the mirror and find the black filigree mark upon their skin in the shape of a great black Spade. They will not be able to deny mysterious clockwork power that claims them. It claims who it will, and cares little for the desires of its pawns. Arthur knows that finding their new King is only a matter of time. 

He thinks he can predict it. Their new King will be powerful. Immensely so. Amazingly so. Spades has never been so united. The power of a King is tied to the Will of the people. It is as fickle, fluctuating, and nebulous as the will of the citizens is. A Kingdom in solidarity will birth a King of immense power. A Kingdom divided, a King that is weak. 

So Arthur knows their new King will be powerful. Arthur pats their former Ace's head as he tells the Prime Minister, reminding him, his fingers carding through Peter's straw hair, of what their last King sacrificed for what will come. It is Arthur's duty as Queen to tell him as much. Parliament cannot deny the Will of the people. The Will of the people will be more than they can handle, and it is in the Prime Minister's interest to plan accordingly.

Yao, his leg splinted, a crutch under his arm, offers a cutting, cackling laugh at Arthur's proclamation. Their Jack knows as well as Arthur does. Spades, bombed and devastated as it is, is still strong. Its body, reflected in Yao's injuries, is recovering, but its will is united as never before.

“They cannot see what's coming.” Yao laughs. 

They don't know what's coming, Arthur thinks. 

“That isn't our place.” Yao has been Jack for decades. Centuries. Longer than Arthur has been alive, and longer than most who have been can remember. The instincts of the people guide him, and he has a sense for them, and for Arthur, that is unnerving. “We support the people's will, Arthur. Whoever it is, we will be by their side.”

Arthur can't be so confident. He is the nation's Mind. Their spiritual power. It isn't as simple for him. It isn't simple for Yao either, he suspects. For a Jack, Yao is rather philosophical, and prone to interests more traditionally fitting a Queen: poetry, art, and politics that have little to do with tactical planning. But Yao is a Jack. There is some part of him that knows unequivocally what his duty is. Who his duty is devoted to. The people, and thus the Will of the people embodied in their King, are absolute. Arthur has no doubt that Yao, as he is, would do as the tragic Jack of Hearts once did, and turn on his King just as quickly as his King turned against the people's Will. Even the Ace would be hard-pressed to stop him.


	3. A New King

Arthur does not know what to expect of their new King. He has no idea how or when he will meet them. He wonders at that person Time will choose for them. True, incredible power is all he can predict. He prays in the chapel's secret heart before the Great Clock, a place only the Queen can enter. It is his sanctuary, his refuge, the place wherein the spiritual power of Time is strongest. 

He prays that power he sees in their future will be tempered by kindness. He prays their new King will be pure and good, and not the monster of Hearts. He prays their King will be someone he can follow without guilt. 

He prays the King's Ace, that poor soul tasked to guard the Heart of the people, will not face the desperate, devastating choice others have: destroy the King corrupted against their people's will, a person dear to their heart, and who considers them dear in turn.

He prays that he will not have to make the same choice, the choice to preserve the Mind of the nation by destroying his nation's Will, or risk the madness all Queens face beneath a corrupted King. He prays he will not fall to that madness. He prays the nation won't. 

It's too recent, too present in Kiku's sleeping face. That terrifying risk. A Queen is tied to the Mind of the nation. The Mind is easily influenced by the people's Will. He can hold out longer, but should he be saddled with a mad King, he knows what he will face in turn. 

He knows that another nation might not be so kind as to let him live. 

He hopes that letting Kiku live was the right choice. 

Arthur meets his new King seven days, six hours, and thirteen minutes after his last King's death. According to tradition, any citizen who has discovered the mark of the Court upon their body is obligated to present themselves to the Guards at parliament, to the ten Knights of the Court. Some have waited. Some have come immediately. Arthur remembers resisting the call until his brothers finally dragged him there from the gallows of his own execution. He never wanted to be Queen. He never wanted such responsibility. He resented it at first: the loss of his freedom, the obligation he was forced under. The loss of the sea air and rocking decks beneath his feet, for all that damned mark saved his life. 

He understands the need now, however much the salt sea air called to him. This was a place he belonged, that he was meant for.

When he meets his new King at last, he doesn't expect that the boy revealed there would understand it was his as well. 

“Hello. I told you I'd make it.”

He's leaning against the office door. Casual, arrogant even, with Spade-blue eyes glittering behind sharp steel-rimmed glasses. Though it takes a moment Arthur does in fact recognize him. 

Memories of a desperate, blood-stained face fill his head. A young Sargent, his brother by his side, limping through the soaked trenches. He remembers the eyes most of all, and the blood. Blue eyes. Bluer than Arthur has ever seen, and laughing through the pain even as shrapnel shreds him. 

“Can't retreat,” the boy told him when Arthur asked him to. “'m the only officer left. Can't let my men down.”

“You're injured,” Arthur informed him, pointlessly. “You're no use to your men.”

That arrogant, callous smile was devastating. “Doesn't matter.” That damned grin. “We're not all immortal. The boys need me, injuries and all.” 

Arthur remembers being infuriated by the arrogance in that boy's words. He remembers later that same boy, wrapped in bandages at the end of that war, on a white bed looking up at him. “Made it.” The bastard laughed. He laughed like a lunatic. Laughed even though he was missing half his leg and his eye was bandaged, probably lost for good. Laughed even when a young man, his brother by the look of him, lightly thwaped him on the head with the most devastated of expressions. “I'll make it,” he remembers that boy promising. “Even like this. I'll make it. Don't count me out yet, your Majesty.”

And here that boy is, watching him. Standing on two legs, both blue eyes staring him down with a measure of power behind them that leaves Arthur breathless. He knows what this boy is the moment he sees him. There's a connection, a recognition amongst those of the Court. It's visceral, and it goes beyond mere understanding.

This is his King. This boy he recognizes from a war-torn battlefield. This boy who shouldn't be walking, let alone staring at him with that same arrogant smile on his lips. It's devastating. It's....

Arthur realizes something then. He realizes something dangerous and deep and impossible, something he can't admit and doesn't dare think deeper on. 

Kings, Queens and Jacks, they are the embodiment of their people's will, mind, and body. They belong to the nation, not themselves. They cannot, do not dare, be more than that. 

So Arthur buries that thing he realizes deep in his heart and holds it there. He does not dare let it escape. He does not dare admit what he feels, and he does not dare think on it further. He smiles at the boy who is smiling at him in turn, a distance between them appropriate to their position, and he says, “I did not expect to see you again.”

“Didn't think it’d be here.” He's rough around the edges. It will take time, Arthur thinks, for Yao and himself to rub that off of him. It might work. Who knows? There is enough pomp and ceremony in this boy's future for him to practice. 

“I suppose we should be meeting on more familiar terms then.” Arthur holds out his hand. “Arthur Kirkland, Queen of Spades.” 

The boy laughs and takes his hand, his grip impossibly strong. So strong that Arthur feels at once as if he should flinch under that grip, and again as if he could be held there forever. “Alfred Jones. I guess I'm the new King of Spades.” 

Arthur saw power in their future. He did not see those impossibly blue eyes, the arrogance in that smile, or the determination in that spirit. He realizes, meeting Alfred Jones for the third time, his destiny as King fulfilled, what that might mean for his nation. Power, pride, and resolute determination, a King strong enough to remake or break their Kingdom. A King who is magnetic and compelling, and could the nation even know what they have created in their unity? This is a King who could rule the world. 

A part of Arthur wants to rule the world with him. 

But a part of him, the part of him that is that solid, sensible mind of the nation, tempers that desire. “We'll be working together from now on,” Arthur tells him. “I hope we will get along.” 

Alfred agrees, and it is the beginning. Arthur doesn't know what of, but he measures that beginning with the end of destruction, and he prays. 

He prays it will end in glory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Kingdoms of Time: Profiles
> 
> Spades:  
> King: Alfred Jones (America)  
> Queen: Arthur Kirkland (England)  
> Jack: Wang Yao (China)  
> Ace: Unknown  
> Shaded Joker: Peter Kirkland (Sealand)
> 
> Hearts:  
> King: Deceased  
> Queen: Honda Kiku (Japan)  
> Jack: Deceased  
> Ace: Deceased


	4. A Mask of Necessity and Doubt

“Mattie, I can't do this.” 

Matthew sees his brother sway and itches to touch him, itches to prop him up and remind him that though the magic that makes him King has mostly repaired the damage to his eye, it has not re-gifted him his leg. The prosthetic that acts in its place is good, but as strong as Alfred chooses to seem his scars are still fresh. The wound is still sore. 

He takes some pride in knowing it was his brother's brilliance and Matthew's own clever hands that built it, but it cannot replace what has been taken from them. It cannot hide the weakness in his brother forever. 

The Kingdom doesn't know about Alfred's injuries. 

They didn't know about Alfred, not until Alfred showed Matthew the mark that appeared one day between his shoulder-blades and told him, “I have to go. I can feel them, Mattie. They need me.” They unwrapped his eye that day and found the worst of it healed. Matthew blessed the strange magic that chose his brother for that miracle, even as he cursed it for making that choice. 

Matthew remembers the desperate plea in his brother's eyes, his desire for it to not be so. Alfred knows what he faces: a soldier home too short a time from war, damaged and broken from it, and now the nation is asking the ultimate service of him. It has chosen him as its King. Matthew reads his twin's fear in his own heart and knows without asking why. 

Alfred is a broken man. The war has left more scars than just his leg, and not all visible. Matthew knows he doesn't believe he's the right man for the job. 

“I have to,” Alfred says, distant, staring into the depths of a Spade-blue twilight. “Don't have a choice right. I have to be strong for them.” 

Be strong, and not let his scars show. 

“I'll be with you.” Matthew can at least promise him that. He rubs at the part of his shoulder he can reach, feels the still-raw spark of the Ace's mark where it has been burned onto his skin. The King and Ace are always chosen together. The Ace is always someone dear to the King: a brother, a sister, a child, a lover, a dear friend. Someone whom the King loves. Someone whom the King wishes to protect. 

Someone who may, one day, have to make the most painful of choices, and tear their treasured person down from their throne for the sake of the land that has chosen them. 

Matthew prays it never comes to that. 

Even more so he prays he will never have to watch his brother die as Spades' former Ace did: a young child left fatherless and alone, made a wanderer without a home by the loss of his King. He will never again feel whole the way Matthew does now, as if a new world of sensation has opened up to him. A new heart that is his to protect. He understands, now, why a Shaded Joker might never feel settled again. To have this feeling torn from him; that thought is horrifying to him now. 

Just don't let me disappear, Matthew prays. Don't let me lose him. 

They have little time to prepare. Alfred decides to turn himself in to the authorities nearly as quickly as he tells Matthew about the mark on his skin. Matthew decides not to stop him. He wouldn't be able to anyway. Alfred is right, the kingdom needs them. Both of them. 

Their mother kisses their foreheads, tears in her eyes as they leave her again too soon. They've only just come home to her from the battlefield. Scarred by war, they're all but strangers to her, and she loves them anyway. She knows, more than even they do, that she has to let them go. She does so tearfully.

“Mattie, help me with—” As they gather their things to leave, Alfred sits himself down and pulls his trousers up to the knee, fiddling with the dials of his false leg. The skin below his knee is still an angry red. Though the flesh is mended, it is unused to the demands of the device he wears. Matthew watches his brother wince as he takes the pressure off of it. He kneels beside his brother and helps him adjust the leg, eyeing the clockwork dials. It's still an experiment, new and not entirely tested, but it's far better than anything the hospitals offered. It's more maneuverable, stronger, more comfortable. It's the best they can do with what they have. 

“I can't tell them, Mattie.” Alfred hisses a breath through his teeth as he pulls his trouser leg down again and grips the back of the chair. Matthew helps him stand. “Help me keep it secret?” 

Matthew swallows. It makes his heart ache to look at his brother, at the pain and determination in his eyes, and agree. Alfred shouldn't have to hide it. His loss was a sacrifice to protect this kingdom. He shouldn't have to be ashamed of it. 

But he needs to be strong, Matthew knows. He feels it in his gut. Alfred needs this, a show of strength, to prove he can do this impossible job he's been given even with the scars in his heart, on his body, and in his mind. His eyes glint with a mad, fierce light that Matthew remembers from the battlefield. That glint has brought them victories. It's brought them tragedy all the same. 

The last Matthew remembers was that one terrible moment when his brother smiled at him and threw him clear of the mine that shredded his leg. The worst part is that Matthew knows his brother didn't expect to survive it. There is no way Matthew could have stopped him. 

He can't stop Alfred now either, so he'll be with him. Close, watching, keeping his King's secrets. He'll be the shoulder he knows Alfred will need in the dark, after his duties are done. 

Together, they'll just be.


	5. Frustration

Arthur's first impression of their new King was a visceral, powerful sensation that he cannot quite explain. His second is that his new King is infuriating.

Lazy. That's the word for it. Alfred F. Jones, the not-yet-crowned King of Spades, lounges in a sofa chair and watches the Court's household carry on moving what few possessions he owns into the Court's manor. There isn't much, and knowing what he does of his new King's background, he thinks it somewhat out of character for the boy to be allowing such effort on his behalf. 

He doesn't seem to care, and that irritates Arthur. The Court's household exists out of tradition, out of the desire their nation has to retain a certain image of pomp and opulence in the Court, even now that it retains only a fraction of the power it once did. It does not exist for some boy to order about on a whim.

It doesn't bode well, this new King's laziness. Arthur takes it as a reason to be wary.

The new Ace, in contrast, is darling. Arthur recognizes the boy as he did his brother, from Alfred's bedside back in that dank hospital at the edge of a battlefield. His demure gaze, his eyes a deeper violet-blue than his brother's are, is endearing. There is a softness about him, a gentleness that Arthur hopes will temper the arrogance he senses in their new King. 

That isn't unusual. The King, the manifestation of the people's Will, is often arrogant. Particularly in this time of victory, when their nation has triumphed over the most extreme adversity, it is only fitting that it chose a King of a similar mind. That it chose a former soldier, that too seems in line. Arthur simply hopes that arrogance will not become something untenable in peace. He hopes that what he sees in the Ace, the King's moral center, the nation's Heart, suggests a balance between them that will lead to stability. 

Their nation needs that stability. It does not need the conflict such arrogance could easily bring down upon them. 

At first Arthur chooses to ignore Alfred's laziness. The boy has had a long day, he supposes, and even if his wounds do seem to have miraculously healed, he cannot be entirely well. The war is only just over, and none of them are entirely fit for company yet. Yao makes no comment on it, and there is no hint of his thoughts in his expression, no clue as to what he might think of the boy. Arthur knows better than to ask. 

It's the little things that bother Arthur's sensibilities until he can no longer stand it. Alfred asks his brother to get him a glass of water. There is a pitcher near the door, and Matthew, the dear boy, does without argument. Alfred could just as easily have gotten it for himself. 

He asks one of the servants for a pen and begins scribbling notes down on a worn notebook he hides in his jacket pocket. He doesn't notice that same servant is carrying a portion of his luggage. He doesn't stand, not even to shake Arthur's hand or greet him when he enters. Arthur can overlook that, as they've already met, but he does the same to Yao, who he has not. He does the same to the Prime Minister. 

One leg propped over his knee, he shakes their hands from his seat, smiles a brilliant, compelling smile, and says he hopes they'll work well together. His greetings sound distracted and insincere. 

Arthur isn't certain this boy knows what “work,” in their position, means.

It doesn't change. Alfred tries to wave it off, but Arthur can only become more irritated with him. It's in the little details: Alfred rarely stands straight, despite being a former soldier. He is nearly always sitting, or leaning, or supporting himself against something. Sometimes that thing is his own brother. Arthur resigns himself to living with an idiot. 

Dear Spades that boy can chatter!

The last straw comes as Arthur is leaving the King's study three months later. For three months he has tried to be patient with the boy, tried to give him time to learn his new duties. Alfred, seated next to his desk, papers on his lap, asks for pen that is just out of reach. Arthur, unable to hold back his temper over such a small, meaningless thing, snaps back at him. “Get it yourself.”

He thinks the boy deserves the surprise that flashes through his eyes. He deserves to feel like a fool. 

Alfred laughs. “You're right,” he says. He pushes his papers aside, and pushes himself up and out of his chair as if the weight of the world were upon his shoulders. 

“Oh for Spades' sake,” Arthur curses and stomps across the room. He snatches the pen from Alfred's desk and turns, half shoving the boy back into his chair. He doesn't see Alfred's face go white, nor the pain that creases lines at the corners of his eyes. “Here.” He presses the pen into Alfred's hand, not realizing he's kneeling on one of Alfred's legs until Alfred actually shouts, a yell that aches through Arthur's head and then his bones, because Alfred shoves him hard to the floor. 

Arthur's up in an instant sputtering, demanding to know what that was for. It's the sight before him that stops him sort. 

Alfred's eyes are squeezed shut. His mouth is one tight line, and his hands grip the chair's arms as if he's molded them to it. His breath hisses out shuddering, short, too fast. When he does finally open his eyes he stares at the floor in front of him as if he's trying desperately to get his bearings and can't. 

The first thing he does, when he notices Arthur's presence again, is apologize. His smile hurts, there's just so much pain in it.

And then, before Arthur can demand to know what in the world just happened, Matthew bursts through the door, summoned, no doubt, by the feel of his King's distress. Aces have a way like that. They know when their King needs them. Peter always did, always knew when something had pushed their King too far. Matthew feels it just as keenly. 

For the very first time Arthur finds himself beneath a stare full of ice, a warning echoing a question, a demand to know what happened. Matthew doesn't have to say anything. He kneels at his brother's side, lets Alfred grip one of his hands like a vice, and he just looks at Arthur. 

Arthur doesn't know how to respond. But he does, finally, earn himself a terrible clue. “Mattie, just help me up will you?” Alfred asks his brother. He doesn't accuse Arthur of causing his pain, doesn't even explain it. Matthew helps him up without complaint, and helps him limp towards the door. 

It's as the pair of them leave that a hazy memory flickers through Arthur's head. A distant memory of a wounded soldier in a hospital bed. A soldier who has lost his leg.

The same leg Alfred is favoring as Matthew leads him away. 

Arthur wonders, but doesn't dare ask. It's just one more clue to the mystery that is their new King. After that, rather than allowing himself to be irritated at every hint of laziness on his King's part, Arthur watches. He observes. He catalogs his King's actions and reactions, and he keeps his suspicions to himself. 

He watches Yao watch their King, and in passing asks him what he sees. Yao, mysterious tease that he is, just smiles at him and tells him to wait and see for himself.


	6. Whispers

In the end Alfred's initial laziness is a non-issue. Within five months the problem has all but fixed itself. Alfred gradually stops asking for things, starts standing straight like the soldier he is. That arrogance in his smile, that only grows, but there is cleverness too. Sparks of intelligence that Arthur wishes he would bloody use instead of making up these ridiculous plans.

The boy has truly ridiculous ideas. Fanciful sketches litter the pages of that silly notebook he carries around, and he rattles off theories to his brother that Arthur barely understands. They don't make sense, so Arthur sees no reason he should understand them. Still, things improve, marginally. A foolish King is far better than a lazy one, so Arthur dismisses his annoyance in favor of other problems.   
Finally they are getting news out of Hearts.

Among the duties of the Queen is the supervision of Spades' intelligence network. The Jack commands the armies, the King acts as executive of the government, but the Queen's duties are more nebulous. Bound in magic and superstition, spies and the like fall under his purview as well. Thus Arthur is the first to hear the news. Hearts has chosen a new King.

A new King and a new Jack. Kiku, still comatose by all reports, has companions to replace the ones he has lost. A part of Arthur is grateful for it. A part of him, though, is cautious. The Jack of Hearts, by all accounts, is not an unknown factor. The grandson of Hearts' former King, the same King that tried so hard to conquer all of the known kingdoms, has been selected as Heart's Jack, which has all sorts of implications Arthur doesn't want to think on. 

The Jack is the body, the instinct, the core of the people. The core, the instinct of the people, is still loyal to their former King. They have not entirely rejected him. 

The new King, however, he is an unknown. A young stranger whose origins Arthur's spies have not yet discovered. He has a name, a brief description, and little else. His spies describe Ludwig (his surname is unknown) as stoic, serious, and diligent. He appears dedicated solely to the rebuilding of his nation. Arthur, in his more spiteful moments, wishes his own nation could have been so lucky. 

So loyalty to the old regime remains, and yet a dedicated will to rebuild and carry on is what defines the will of Hearts' people. Perhaps Arthur can relax. Marginally, but perhaps a bit. Its a gift in itself that he can afford that. Spades too has much to recover. 

Arthur has received news from Diamonds as well: news of rebuilding and news of a new Queen. Diamonds remains devastated, but recovering. Their King, well... Arthur can't say how he is. He hasn't had much chance to contact his friend, or ask him how he fairs. He hasn't seen Francis since the height of the war, when he was forced to pull his people back from Diamond territory for fear of losing them to Hearts. He regrets that, leaving his friend behind, but he had little choice. 

He is Queen of Spades. The safety and security of Spades must be his priority, no matter his personal feelings. He cannot sacrifice himself, the magic Spades depends on, on the defense of another nation. Not when his nation is under threat as well. 

He regrets more that he has not seen Francis since then. He has not had the chance. They are old, if vitriolic friends, and Arthur feels as if he has betrayed Francis in part by having failed to seek him out. He hopes, as things settle, that he will have the chance soon. 

Clubs remains a mystery. But for Gilbert, there is no hint as to the goings on in that northern country. Arthur once had agents in that land as well. He has lost several, and war forced him to pull back more. Revolution, that is what he hears tell of. Gilbert, former Ace, now a Black Joker out of Clubs, is uncharacteristically cryptic in his remarks. Arthur hates him for it a little, but isn't sure he can blame the man. Not when he sees what Gilbert has become. 

His appearance as a Joker, not just a Joker, but a Black, that tells more than Gilberts' words say. The former King of Clubs is dead, and though Gilbert hasn't said, it was likely by his Ace's hand. Arthur only wishes he would say more. 

Hints and cryptic messages, that will not help his rebuilding nation. That will not tell him what he must ask of his new, untested King. Arthur pinches his brow as he settles into a chair in his office. He appreciates the solitude and the refuge of his own space as worries and thoughts rattle through his head. They are thoughts of a rebuilding world he can't yet quite predict, a new King who seems all too simple and all too complicated at once, and too many mysteries for him to appreciate. 

He is not the sort to appreciate change.


	7. A Fool's Coronation

The coronation of the new King of Spades takes place two months and three days after the death of his predecessor. Arthur has not yet lost his temper at his new King. Yao has not yet cautioned his Queen against his prejudice, and Alfred has not yet trusted his new colleagues with his secret.

Life in the Court is, in a word, exhausting. Alfred hates how much so, because standing about listening to the parliament and the Prime Minister and learning the ins and outs of his new duties should not tire him so. He's come from a war, just off the battlefield, and all he does is stand about and listen to people talk. 

So in the moments when he can catch a chance to rest his aching leg, or spare the briefest of moments to collect himself, he does so. He hates the look in the Queen's eyes when he does, that contempt and judgment, but a part of him doesn't care. Part of him wants to rub the reason for it in his Queen's face, but he can't bring himself to. He can't bring himself to admit his weakness. 

Matthew pleads with him evening after evening. “They're your Court,” he insists. “You can't do this alone.” 

Alfred laughs, knowing it hurts his brother to see him like this. Knowing he can't trust them yet anyway. He doesn't like the way Matthew folds, hurting but accepting, because he doesn't have the confidence to tell Alfred otherwise. Alfred feels like a jerk taking advantage of that. He knows his brother well enough to know he can, and he hurts enough, is prideful enough, to do so. 

“I have to,” he tells Matthew in the privacy of the office he has been granted. The King's office is full of old relics and paraphernalia that isn't his and is too fancy for his tastes. Full of memories of the man he's replacing. Full of reminders that he isn't as strong as he's pretending to be. “Just a little longer,” Alfred insists, acquiescing to his brother's pleas in the smallest of ways. “I'm not ready yet. I'll tell them when I'm ready.”

He'll never be ready. 

The coronation is almost too much for him. 

He's too young to remember the coronation of the last King of Spades. The current Queen's coronation happened when he was very young, a reminder of just how set apart he is from his colleagues. Even his Queen, the next youngest of the Court, is old enough that the magic that has chosen them hides his true age. Time has chosen him, and thus he doesn't appear to be a man near fifty. As the Court does, Arthur appears to be the same age he was upon his coronation. Alfred knows he will suffer that same fate. Twenty years old, and he will never age a day past the one on which the King's mark appeared upon his back. A part of him wishes it could have marked him a month earlier. Maybe then he wouldn't suffer the barely concealable weakness that is his missing leg. Maybe then the magic could have done something to fix him. 

As it is, members of parliament, servants in service to the Court, and the Jack himself do their abject best to prepare him. Yao is a man that Alfred finds opaque. He smiles frequently, but with an air of mystery to him that frustrates Alfred beyond belief. He wants to pick that smile apart and see what makes it tick, but he can't because he can't even find the seams through which he can penetrate its casing. Yao is at once straight-forward and cryptic. His instructions have the clarity of experience. His feelings on Alfred, on Matthew, on this entire situation, are unreadable. Alfred even has the troubling suspicion that he hasn't successfully hidden anything from his Jack, and that makes him incredibly uncomfortable. 

If he can't keep his secrets from Yao, what good is it trying to keep them from his Queen. How can he keep them from the rest of the nation? 

He doesn't tell Matthew about that. Matthew would only use it to push him harder, to insist more forcefully that he tell his Queen and Jack what he suffers. He's just not ready. 

The ceremony lasts nearly the entire day. There are speeches and pomp and crowns and treasures that shine so brightly that Alfred thinks they have no place laid in front of a people who have suffered so much loss. He fingers the symbol of his enthroned power, the spade-shaped pocket watch given to him by the Prime Minister, and he thinks back, remembering his history in bits and pieces. He recalls it has been only fifty years since the King before him took the throne, and with it took on the challenge and responsibility of rule beside a parliament. Diamonds was the first to do it. That's right, he thinks. Diamonds, then Spades, but the King of Spades did not give up his power entirely for the comfort of becoming a useless symbol to his nation. 

It's a bit muddled in Alfred's head, but he thinks that there isn't much point to all of this ceremony when the parliament hardly goes through the same thing. The Prime Minister, politically, holds at least as much power as he does and he doesn’t have to suffer through the fuss of being crowned and draped in velvet and mink. 

The crown is heavy. The scepter is a gargantuan thing with a golden staff half his height and a diamond pommel that glitters like a small sun the size of his fist. Alfred has large hands. It's a pretty big diamond. He's a little mystified by the idea of even holding such a thing. Only one thing, that watch, is any true symbol of his power that he will carry with him, the only thing that is enough to prove his position beyond the mark on his back. The rest of it, he thinks, isn't worth the trouble. 

He manages not to stumble over the traditional words he must speak, something he hopes his Queen makes note of, because he knows the man dislikes him. Despite his best efforts to be friendly, Arthur Kirkland is slow to warm to him. Their first meeting still rattles about in Alfred's head. He doesn't know what to make of it: the intense stares and awkward words.

He concentrates on the things he can, and tries not to worry about it. They have time. All the time in the world, hilariously, because unless someone stabs Alfred in the spine tomorrow night, he's going to be stuck not aging and undying for a very long time. The four of them (Matthew too thank everything) are going to be stuck together for a very long time. 

By the end of the coronation, Alfred is lightheaded, his leg aches and burns and feels half-numb, and he isn't sure how he is still standing. He pushes on because he has to, because the nation needs him to stand strong and finish this, and because he can't afford to let his Queen and Jack know something his horribly, terribly wrong with him.

These people have sworn in the wrong man. 

(The mark on his back screams otherwise.) 

They've got the wrong man. Time can't possibly have known what it was doing choosing him. A broken, wounded, weak man who can't be what the nation needs. 

Wasn't there someone better? 

Well, he supposes, slumping in a chair in the manor's parlor, his Queen and Jack beside him, if he's been chosen for this role then he's going to do the best he can at it. Maybe he isn't what the nation needs, but he knows he was chosen for a reason. Whatever that reason is, the nation thinks he's what they need. He doesn't understand the magic, the process, any of it. Arthur's rattled off some nonsense about Time and wills and minds and hearts that Alfred just doesn't get, but he's King now. He's been crowned in front of the people, and they cheered. 

They cheered. 

He can feel it, echoing in his head. They're happy. They're together, their wills bound as one to him. They are resolute.

For the first time since he lost his leg, Alfred feels strong. 

So he decides, then and there, that he's going to do what he can. No matter how much he hurts, how hard it is, he'll do his best to be what his nation thinks he can be. He'll take that strength into his heart and give it back to them. 

In spades. 

And maybe, someday, he'll be able to do as his brother asks and trust his fellows, his Queen and Jack, with the truth of just how weak he really is. 

But not yet. Not yet. There's too much to do. He's still weak, he still hurts, but there's too much to do. He'll do it, and he'll do it to the best of his ability.

No matter what.


	8. Shadows

Clubs sends an ambassador eleven months and fourteen days after the war ends. Given it’s near a year, Arthur is at a loss as to what to do about his announcement. A part of him had resigned the situation to one they might never hear of.

The King of Clubs is dead. Not just the King, the entire Court. The corrupt system of absolute rule by the Courts is at an end. A new order is in place. The Court shall follow the will of the people, serve the heart of the people, and progress into a new era of prosperity. 

Arthur remembers Clubs' Court. He is rattled to hear they are dead. These are people he has spoken with, eaten with, and worked with personally. At the same time he finds it encouraging to hear that Clubs has embraced a parliament of its own. He is wary, unsure of the hints he hears in Ambassador Laurinaitis’ voice. There's a fanatic gleam in his green eyes that, despite the positive hints of Clubs' fate, rubs Arthur the wrong way.

He decides to reserve judgment until he knows more. Yao, he knows, will agree with him. It's watching their King's reaction to this news that he finds reason to question that decision, and at the same time finds a new foothold upon which to judge his colleague. 

Alfred shakes the man's hand and asks questions. Random questions. “Is it really that cold in Clubs? What does baklava taste like?” Silly things. Silly, pointless things that make Arthur shake his head. Matthew, hanging about the corner of the room, is laughing beneath his hand. His eyes twinkle fondly. He's seen this sort of thing before, that is clear.

The ambassador is set at ease by the simple questions. He answers freely to others, deeper questions that Arthur isn't sure he realizes are as revealing as they are. “How are the people, are they all right? The war was hard, wasn't it?” 

Hard, devastating, but they have survived. The people are hardy, strong, with a stronger will. They believe in the new regime. 

Clubs retreated before Hearts invaded them. They suffered attacks on their borders, the deaths of their soldiers, losses at the front, but Arthur knows that Hearts refocused their efforts against Spades when Clubs went dark. Devastating. If the war was devastating, then it wasn't by the hand of Hearts. 

He wonders if Alfred realizes that. He doesn't think the boy does. 

There are other hints that Alfred works out of the man. Hints about Clubs' new King. Hints of the state of the people. “Our King is strong. Of course he would be, the Will of the people is strong. Perhaps soon you will have the opportunity to meet him.” Something flashes in the ambassador’s eyes, something a little contemptuous. “I am sure that the King of Spades hears his people's Will just as keenly.”

Alfred passes over the question in the man's tone as if he didn't hear it. Though Arthur is grateful that Alfred does not reveal the same information this man does, it also irritates him how completely Alfred seems to miss the question. 

They might meet the King of Clubs, will they? So Clubs intends to assert itself again. Perhaps more details of their sudden isolation will come to the fore. “And their new Queen?” Arthur asks, curious after his new counterpart. 

“As iron-willed as our King. Sharp of wit. She does not adhere to the silly superstitions so many Queens do. Progress, I'd say.” Arthur ignores the obvious dig at himself. Though he keeps his magics private, they are a part of who and what he is. Their strength is a sign of the people's communion with Time and the spiritual powers of the world, and he wouldn't give them up for anything. A Queen who has either rejected or puts little stock in magic? That is a troubling concept. The Queen is the Mind and spiritual power of the nation. How can she set aside a full half of herself? 

What does that say about Clubs? 

Yao does not ask after the new Jack. In his usual way he remains quiet, listening, pondering what he hears. Later, when he has had the chance to think it through, Arthur knows he will hear the man's assessment of the situation. Yao is slow to judge and rarely impulsive, a complete contrast to their new King. 

Their King, whose eyes sharpen as the ambassador leaves, his smile falling briefly from his lips. “Alfred, what is it?” Matthew asks him, pushing himself into the center of the room, asserting himself for the first time since the beginning of this meeting. 

“Something's wrong in Clubs.” 

Arthur, startled because he didn't realize Alfred understood those signs, lifts his head up to stare at his King. Alfred catches his eye from the corner of his own and that smile returns, all mindless arrogance. “That's what's making you frown like that, right Arthur? I thought something about him seemed off.” 

He didn't notice after all. Of course he didn't, but he is, Arthur realizes, getting better at reading the cues of his own Court. Arthur is going to have to do something about that, but at least his image of the world is as it should be. The last thing he needs now, with this new stress hanging over him, is to realize that he has misjudged their King all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Kingdoms of Time: Post-Spades' Coronation Profiles
> 
> Spades:  
> King: Alfred Jones (America  
> Queen: Arthur Kirkland (England)  
> Jack: Wang Yao (China)  
> Ace: Matthew Williams (Canada)  
> Shaded Joker: Peter Kirkland (Sealand)
> 
> Hearts:  
> King: Unknown  
> Queen: Honda Kiku (Japan)  
> Jack: Unknown  
> Ace: Unknown
> 
> Clubs:  
> King: Unknown  
> Queen: Unknown  
> Jack: Unknown  
> Ace: Unknown  
> Black Joker: Gilbert Beilschmidt (Prussia)  
> Knight Ambassador: Toris Laurinaitis (Lithuania)


	9. A Quiet Understanding

It is four months, six days and twenty hours before Arthur realizes that Alfred never calls him by name. It isn't something that Arthur has paid attention to. He listens to Alfred chatter with his brother, listens to him fondly call him “Mattie,” and that makes sense. As all Aces are, Matthew is someone from his King's past, someone dear to him. The dearest person to him, truly, and the person who knows Alfred's heart best. In retrospect Arthur realizes he could have asked Matthew to explain the strangeness that is his brother all along, but there is something about the boy that makes Arthur think that Matthew doesn't entirely trust him.

Those two blond heads pressed together, the flicker of a glance Matthew always gives Arthur when he enters, the way their voices turn to a whisper. Those are the hints. 

It isn't good for a King to be so distant from the rest of his Court, but it is to be expected. Arthur certainly wasn't close to Yao in the first couple years after his choosing. He was closer to his former King, but not much. Arthur has never been one to warm to strangers easily. It took time to build the trust that allowed them to act as a cohesive unit, and Arthur expects it will take time with Alfred as well.

And, well, he didn't choose this King any more than Yao did, so he feels he is entitled to be irritated by some of the boy's habits. He feels entitled to being unsure. 

The conversation happens in passing one evening when Arthur decides to stop by his King's office and make sure the fool boy has the paperwork he received earlier that day in order. He feels obligated to check on Alfred because parliament needs those signatures and the nation cannot wait for their King to adjust to his new status. Sometimes he sits by Alfred's office just long enough to be sure the boy is even reading them.

“You're entirely sure you read them thoroughly?” Arthur asks, just to check, as he collects the files from Alfred's desk. 

Alfred, slumped in his chair as usual, has a self-deprecating laugh on his lips as he shrugs. “Yao helped me read through them, pointed out some of what I needed. They're solid. Promise.” 

Yao. Arthur doesn't even notice the familiarity immediately. 

“Sir Queen,” Alfred calls as Arthur leaves. “I can handle more than this. You can tell them that. I know you're the one holding them back.” 

As Arthur leaves the office, he contemplates those words. His immediate reaction is that Alfred is just a child, too new to this position, and of course he can't handle it. The ungrateful sod, does he not appreciate Arthur's efforts to ease his transition? What would Yao think?

It's that last thought that stops him. Yao. Alfred called the Jack by name. That's when he notices it. He wonders why, then, Alfred didn't deign to call him by name as well. 

Two days later, Arthur realizes his mistake, and he feels like an utter fool. Yao has been helping Alfred. Of course. 

It has been too many years for Arthur to really remember what it was like to become Queen, to enter this new roll he lives day in and day out and to deal with all the sudden expectations and responsibilities that accompany it. Yao has been helping Alfred. 

Arthur has done nothing but hold him back and worse, he has never offered to help guide Alfred through the difficult process of learning his new role. 

He confronts Alfred about it that same day, out on one of the manor's balconies after dinner. That cursed casual shrug is half of Alfred's response. The rest makes Arthur feel both infuriated and cold. “Didn't think asking would be a good idea,” Alfred tells him. He looks out at the garden spreading below them under the moonlight. “You always seem busy, and you don't seem to like me much anyway. Didn't think it'd be a good idea to bother you, not about something small.”

As if making sure that the King actually knows enough to run his kingdom is beneath him. Because that couldn't possibly be vitally important to the nation's stability. A part of Arthur wants to snap at Alfred, to tell him that he would be a great deal less busy if he knew Alfred were capable of handling his own work, but some very intelligent part of him for once holds his tongue. 

The boy doesn't deserve that. It's Arthur's fault, in part, that he hasn't noticed Alfred's improvements. “You would know whether I was willing to help you if you asked me,” Arthur retorts instead. It's more neutral, and less cruel. 

“Yeah.” There's something skeptical in Alfred's voice. “Hey.” Alfred pauses, before he looks at Arthur, his gaze thoughtful. “I was serious before. I can handle more.”

“You aren't going to get bored and start playing about, or give up and say it's too much?” Arthur asks him cautiously. 

There's a flicker of something Arthur can't properly read in Alfred's eyes as he laughs it off (thoughtless idiot) and shakes his head. “I'll get it done. Promise.”

Arthur turns to him. He holds out his hand, mostly because this is bothering him more than he wants to admit, and he might as well settle it. He suspects Alfred is too dense to notice any hints he might give anyway. “Call me Arthur then. I'll hold you to that promise.”

Alfred takes Arthur's hand in his larger ones and shakes it. “Deal, Arthur.”

It isn't much. It doesn't settle their mutual dislike of each other, or solve the divide between them, but it's something. It's more than it was.


	10. Introductions

One year to the day after Hearts surrenders to Spades, Alfred meets the Courts of the four kingdoms for the first time. The ceremony of the event seems unnecessary. Alfred is a solider and just a normal working boy before that, and so the decadent silk banners and soft rugs and gilt furniture of a by-gone age make him uncomfortable. He hardly knows what to do with the starched suit and brocade overcoat they've stuffed him into. The fabric feels so expensive it is all but giving him hives, and all he can think of is how every penny spent on it could be helping rebuild one more hospital, one more school, or one more home lost to the war.

Arthur insists. Of course he does. Alfred knows from the insistence and the frustration in his Queen's voice that no matter how stupid he thinks this is, it's necessary.

Why, well, he'll try to ask Yao that later. Maybe his Jack will give him a straight answer, or at least a cryptic one that isn't filled with long-suffering sighs and put-upon looks. He can guess. The other Courts are coming. Spades is rebuilding, but parliament wants to show a strong front to their neighbors, and Alfred supposes all of this pomp is one way to do it. He doesn't feel the necessity of it as keenly. Hearts and Diamonds are still rebuilding too, so why would they look down on Spades for being in disrepair? Or for spending their money on their citizens rather than this show? Alfred doesn't know enough about Clubs to say one way or another, but everything he's heard so far suggests they're not doing any better. 

He writes in some suggestions to the Prime Minister when a bill passes his desk that puts funds towards the gathering. He makes sure Arthur doesn't see it because he's pretty sure his Queen would object. Make sure any extras from the feast get sent down to the refugee kitchens, Alfred tells his Prime Minister in passing. He sneaks into the kitchen to tell them as well not to overdo it. Six months ago the Court's head cook nearly had a heart-attack when Alfred showed up in his kitchen. 

Li Xiao Chun is usually quiet. Alfred doesn't even know how badly he startled the man until Yao comes to him later and insists that the household is quite capable of handling themselves. At which point Alfred learns that not only is Xiao Chun unnerved by him (though a series of further cryptic details his Jack bestows on him) but that he also happens to be one of the ten Knights tasked with the Courts safety and would very much appreciate it if he was left to his own business, thank you. His family is not aware he acts as the Court's personal chef and he does not need them finding out.

When Alfred asks why one of his Knights is also a cook, Yao responds by asking him why their King is a former soldier who prefers to tinker with half-formed inventions. 

It doesn't matter, is the answer. Xiao Chun likes what he does and does not like to have his duties interfered with. Who better to prepare the Court's food than someone who has been assigned to protect them? 

But that is all beside the point. Xiao Chun appreciates his request, now, six months later when they have something of an understanding between them. If Xiao Chun were the type to smile, Alfred even thinks he might have earned one. Parliament and his fellow members of the Court might think the kingdom needs to prove something to the other kingdoms, but Alfred knows Xiao Chun and the rest of his household is clever enough to manage something impressive without spending more money than Spades can really afford. There are more important things that can be done with it than showing off.

Bothering various members of the household into keeping the whole event from bankrupting the country is one way Alfred manages to take his mind off of what all of this means. He's never met anyone from the other Courts before. He's never had to measure up to the other Kings, never seen what he's supposed to be reflected in another face that bears a mark almost the same as his own. His leg aches from anxiety more than real pain. What if he doesn't cut it? What if meeting them just proves he really is as weak as he thinks he is?

What if he really is the wrong choice?

In one year, two months, eighteen days and four hours, he will be forced to reveal to his Court what he has kept hidden, that he is only part of the man they think he is. That he is damaged in a way that cannot be fixed by magic, or Time, or any greater power. That he isn't this uniquely powerful King they have predicted and that the Will of the nation just isn't that strong. 

(It is strong, he feels in his bones. Strong and focused and rebuilding, and even though he makes it his task to ensure that this farce of a party won't harm his citizens, he knows they're with him. He knows they believe in the Court and the Parliament and they want this show of strength and power. He just wants to make sure it doesn't hurt them to produce it.) 

Though Alfred's relationship with his Court remains tenuous, he is proud to sit enthroned beside his Queen and Jack that night. Arthur, splendid in deep blues and violets, a violet top hat upon his head and a stark-white cravat at his throat, puts on an exceptional show of support. The knee-high clock that leans against his throne beside him is something only he can touch: a representation of his spiritual power and status as Spades' Queen, and he drapes one arm over it with a casualness that speaks of how comfortable he is with that power. 

Sputtering, fussing and temper aside, Alfred does remember what he saw in the war: his Queen on the battlefield, magic at his fingertips, and the skill with which he wielded it. More importantly the confidence with which he wielded it. Arthur Kirkland, Queen of Spades, is a master of his arts, and he knows it.

The Jack's throne is smaller, and Yao doesn't bother to sit. Instead he stands draped in the voluminous blue and violet robes of a by-gone time. Though Alfred never paid much attention to history in school, he's pretty sure the style of Yao's clothing is at least a century old, and maybe even older. Yao wears his age as casually as Arthur wears his symbols of power, turning it into a statement of who and what he is, and what that means. The great curved sword he wields, his own symbol of power, is steady in front of him, and Alfred is pretty sure it is no mere decoration or relic. It is as sharp as the man who wields it. 

Alfred himself feels out of place. He's a former Sargent, not even a higher officer, and here he is sitting above two of the most powerful people he knows, not just personally, but from all of his life. These are two men who have ruled an entire nation for decades. He's a newcomer, a child before them. The golden pocket-watch clipped to his coat seems small compared to their relics, and he with it. Symbol of the King's power or not, how can he, and it, measure up to this pair. 

Well, he has to try. The kingdom Wills him to be strong, and so he'll have to be. He'll have to show these other kingdoms just who and what he and his nation can be. 

He doesn't have a choice.

Diamonds presents itself first. Recent allies, they have reason to easily accept Spades' welcome. Their King is a tall man who wears the glamor of his costume with an unnatural sort of ease. He seems the sort that was born to it: the gold-and-yellow clothing with its silks and lace-cuffed sleeves and shimmering embroidered diamonds etched into the fabric. He bows with a skill that conveys both a hint of friendly mockery and practiced grace, as if he knows this is all a show. “His Majesty King Francis Bonnefoy of Diamonds,” is how he is introduced. Alfred catches the briefest flicker of amusement in his Queen's eyes as he bows and thinks, for a moment, that there's something between the pair of them. Francis openly winks at Arthur, drawing that flustered flush that comes so easily to his face.

Those two know each other, Alfred realizes. As more than just members of Courts that meet every now and then for the good of their nations. He wants to wonder about it, but he doesn't have time, because the rest of Diamonds' Court follows quickly. 

The Queen of Diamonds, Alfred remembers, is as new as he is. Elise Vogel is a small, demure young woman with pale hair that curls gently around the frame of her face and the nervous step of someone who has never been watched by quite so many people. Alfred doesn't know much about her. No one in Spades does, actually, and if Arthur knows more he hasn't said. Alfred would bet he knows a little more, and would like to pretend he knows even more than that.

There is a flash of determination in her eyes as she steps forward and curtsies to the throne. Her movements are practiced, regal. Alfred is dead sure she comes out of Diamonds' nobility. There's just too much about her that screams sheltered and wealthy and raised “right.” But that determination gives him hope. Maybe she's come out of luxury, but she is trying. And maybe, Alfred can admit to himself, he has no idea where she is really coming from. Everyone in the world is probably judging her just the same way they are him: waiting for a moment, an action, a word, to decide what kind of King he is or will be. She doesn't need that from him as well. 

Diamonds Jack is pretty easy to describe. Severe, is the best word for him. He looks a bit like the Queen, but Alfred remembers from Arthur's insistence on his studies and Yao's more useful information that Basch Zwingli has been Jack for years. If they are related it's probably a distant relationship, since Basch is old enough that his age doesn't show in his face. Alfred can't get much of a read on him, and he's not sure he wants to. He doesn't look like a pleasant person. 

He is the only one who carries one of Diamond's relics openly: a plain-looking wooden staff inlayed with precious wood in a diamond pattern. At first Alfred is a little surprised. It makes sense that here in Spades he and his Court are carrying the relics of their stations, but he didn't think the other Courts would carry theirs into another country. 

There are stories about their relics: objects of ancient power gifted to the original Courts of the four nations by Time itself. Relics that mark the legitimacy of the Court and enhance their power. 

Later, in a brief moment while the Courts mingle, after all this pomp and presentation, Yao will whisper to Alfred as he often does when he notices his King is missing information he could use. “They want to show their strength as much as we do. Even if we're hosting them, this is their chance to show the world their nations still stand strong.” 

Alfred will realize his right. Hearts has brought not just one of their relics, but two along with their Court. The new King of Hearts is not well known. He is tall and stern-looking, and seems uncomfortable in the crimson drape of his elaborate clothing. He carries a scepter in his hands that is topped with an enormous ruby, and that ruby actually seems to glow in the hall's light. Unlike the scepter of Spades, which is no relic but instead just a pretty bauble that exists to remind people of the wealth of their nation, the Scepter of the King of Hearts holds actual power. Alfred can sense it from where he sits. He didn't sense the power in Basch's staff, but that was a Jack's relic. Maybe it's because King Ludwig (his last name is not given) is holding a King's relic, that Alfred notices. 

He tries not to place too much importance on it. It's just an object, an expensive and pretty one, but an object. All he has is a golden spade-shaped pocket-watch and he knows it can't hold that much power. Not enough to turn his head, certainly. He meets Ludwig's eyes and grins at him, and for a moment he thinks he senses the man's resignation, as if Alfred's grin is both familiar and something he finds endearingly unavoidable. 

Alfred isn't sure what to make of that. 

Fortunately he is swiftly distracted by Hearts' Queen. 

Honda Kiku is someone that Alfred recognizes instantly, or he would, if not for the fact that he looks like a completely different person here in Spades' manor. Gone is the sharp white uniform, the long-sword at his side, and the cold-eyed expression that promises no mercy. He wears a draped crimson and purple garment that gives him a gentler look. His eyes are cast down; he doesn't meet the gazes of any of Spades' Court, Alfred notices, and he looks distinctly unhealthy. 

It has been a year to the day since Hearts' defeat, and Kiku is the only member of Hearts' former Court still alive. He looks as if that year has cost him centuries of strength. He looks like an old man with a young face, as if the world's weight has become too much for him to bear. 

He is personally responsible for more than a dozen atrocities. He led dozens more battles, and killed hundreds of Spades civilians. 

A quick glance from Yao reminds Alfred that he was warned about Kiku's appearance before hand, and warned to hold his tongue. “The war is over,” Yao told him firmly. “Hearts is rebuilding, and we would rather have them stable than stir up old wounds.”

They're still very close wounds. Alfred lost friends in that war. He almost lost his brother. He did lose part of himself. So he is thankful for Yao's warning, because this is the first time he's come face to face with one of his former enemies and he isn't sure he could have held his tongue otherwise.

It's over, he reminds himself. You remember what Arthur said: “Queens are tied to their King's minds. When the Will of the people is as strong as Hearts' was, the Mind can, at a point, only follow it. It overrides all rational thought, and the Queen follows with.” 

“So Hearts Queen couldn't help himself?” Alfred asked, skeptical. He doesn't like that, that it could be so easy to wipe away what Hearts' Queen has done, excuse it with the magic that influences all of them. 

“I'm not asking you to forgive, Alfred,” Arthur tells him. “Kiku had his own place in the war. It was as personal for him as it was for the rest of us. I only ask that you remember he was not entirely in his right mind.”

“Could I do that to you?”

Arthur hesitated. “If it came to it, I could be influenced like that as well.” He looked uncomfortable in the dim light of Alfred's office. “I—I don't know what it would actually mean. How much control I would have personally, how much it actually would affect me. The only way to know is—”

Alfred has never seen his Queen quiet so profoundly disturbed as in that moment. It was a moment, a vulnerable one on his Queen's part, and possibly the first honest one between them aside from the day Arthur asked Alfred to call him by name. It would disturb someone like Arthur, the idea of not being in control of his own mind, of being so under the influence of a magic beyond his control that he couldn't choose his own destiny. Alfred thinks he's understood something about his Queen in that brief moment. He only hopes that understanding comes to something more than the distance at which they currently are.

So Alfred reserves his judgment about Hearts' Queen, and even allows himself some empathy for him, for Kiku does not look well. He seems to be holding himself together through sheer force of will. Alfred doesn't admit that he is reserving judgment mostly for Arthur's sake, because he isn't yet ready to admit he cares what his Queen thinks of him. He won't even consciously realize he does care for at least another four months, and it will take him longer to accept. For now he reserves his judgment because his Queen has a point, and Kiku doesn't look like he's in any condition to handle accusations.

He's the King of Spades, king of the victorious nation. He can at least not be a jerk about it. (Even if the war did cost him several friends and his leg.) 

Issues with Hearts' Queen aside, he immediately takes a liking to their Jack. Bouncy, is the first word that comes to mind. Excitable, full of energy, and just so cursed happy his presence alone is like a breath of fresh air. The spear he carries, Hearts' Jack relic, is draped in crimson fabric and held over his shoulder like it's a toy. His bow is a flourish of smiles and cheerful greetings. He's the only member of any of the Courts thus far to even say anything. When he does it's a gleeful hello, as if he can't even feel the tension in the room, and it earns a fond if exasperated look from his King. Beneath the cover of one of his draped sleeves, the Queen of Hearts smiles at his antics and his too-stiff shoulders relax a fraction. 

The entire room relaxes a fraction. Better yet, Alfred sees a mortified flush of color rise in Arthur's cheeks and can't help but enjoy it. Alfred winks at that Jack, even if he also acquiesces to protocol and stays silent through the introductions. He'd like to talk to that young man, Feliciano Vargas. His cheer beneath the weight of this room, their duties, what it all means, is compelling. 

The moment passes, and Alfred swallows, because he knows what is coming next. He and his Court discussed this. There hasn't been a word more out of Clubs beyond their cryptic ambassador until now. This is the first moment that the new Clubs Court has even been seen in public, let alone met by a member of another Court. No one knows what to expect. 

Alfred just hopes it ends up being something good. He can't help but be apprehensive anyway. 

Violet eyes. Alfred locks eyes with the King of Clubs the very moment he enters the room, and it's like a flash of light and sound and wind: a bomb, an artillery shell hitting the ground. An impossible moment of visceral recognition that both of them feel. 

Ivan Braginski carries no relics. He isn't dressed in the opulent garments of his fellow Courts. Beside the finery of the hall he should be drab. He should be an embarrassment to his people, looking as he does. His gray coat is simple, its only decoration a simple bronze star upon his breast. 

And he is undeniably the most powerful King in this room. Alfred's first thought isn't one. It's a feeling as if the bottom of his stomach has dropped out and as if gravity has suddenly jerked him around on his ass. He can't look away from the man, because he can feel Ivan's power as keenly as he's sure Ivan can feel his.

Ludwig is resolute and collected, strong in determination and steady. Francis feels like something old and worn and still fighting, still strong enough to hold on. Ivan though, Ivan feels like a tidal wave, and Alfred fears he'll be swept away by it. 

The other Kings, for a moment he thought he'd be okay, that he could stand up to them if he had to, and that maybe his damned leg wouldn't matter. Maybe he wasn't actually as weak as he feared. 

He knows, seeing Ivan, that isn't true. He's a child, a pitiful, wounded child compared to that power, and it terrifies him. 

He catches a glimpse of Arthur staring at him, sharp green eyes meeting his from the corners, and he sucks in a breath. He stills his nerves, because if his Queen has noticed his discomfort than other people have too, and that's not good. He can't let Spades down by showing them just how weak he is right here and now. 

When Ivan smiles and nods to him, Alfred expects a twinkle in his eye. It's the sort of smile that seems as if it should be happy, a little mischievous, maybe even kind. There's nothing there but dull acceptance, and if Ivan is that powerful with so little life in his eyes, than what would he be with more? 

Alfred is grateful when he steps aside, giving way to Clubs Queen. The longer he has to look at Ivan the crazier he feels he's going to go. 

Clubs' Queen dresses similarly simply. Her green dress looks like something a maid would wear, and there is no finery to be had upon her. She's a beautiful woman, with a defiant chin and sharp eyes. Her cheeks look like the sort that would round with a smile, but she isn't smiling. Those eyes are focused, determined, more aware than her King's seem, but equally just... 

…wrong. 

The word echoes in Alfred's head. 

Wrong. Something is wrong here. With Clubs' Court. He can't put his finger on it. 

Their Jack is a slender man. He doesn't look like a warrior any more than Yao does, which means Alfred is even more wary of him than the other two combined. He knows what Yao is capable of, or he thinks he does. He knows enough to scare himself silly and that's all that matters. As simply dressed as the rest of his Court, Clubs’ Jack wears his very ordinary suit coat with an air of nobility and grace that doesn't seem right with it. He doesn't look like the sort who would smile much, but the dignity he holds himself with, Alfred can almost imagine it's something he clings to, because it's all he has left. 

Something is very, very wrong here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Kingdoms of Time: As Chosen following the War of Hearts
> 
> Spades:  
> King: Alfred Jones (America)  
> Queen: Arthur Kirkland (England)  
> Jack: Wang Yao (China)  
> Ace: Matthew Williams (Canada)  
> Shaded Joker: Peter Kirkland (Sealand)  
> Knight: Li Xiao Chun (Hong Kong)
> 
> Hearts:  
> King: Ludwig (Germany)  
> Queen: Honda Kiku (Japan)  
> Jack: Feliciano Vargas (Italy)  
> Ace: Unknown
> 
> Clubs:  
> King: Ivan Braginsky (Russia)  
> Queen: Elizaveta Hedervary (Hungary)  
> Jack: Roderich Edelstein (Austria)  
> Ace: Unknown  
> Black Joker: Gilbert Beilschmidt (Prussia)  
> Knight Ambassador: Toris Laurinaitis (Lithuania)
> 
> Diamonds:  
> King: Francis Bonnefoy (France)  
> Queen: Elise Vogel (Liechtenstein)  
> Jack: Basch Zwingli (Switzerland)  
> Ace: Unknown


	11. Old Friends

Their King conducts himself with adequate grace throughout the introductions. That, though Arthur will not say it to him, is something he can at least give the boy credit for. He keeps his chatter hushed and his expression as neutral as a boy so expressive can, and he offers no insult nor embarrassment to the presented Courts.

Arthur allows himself to relax as the festivities move into a more casual forum. Government officials, presented after the Courts, mingle across the floor around food-laden tables and delicate champagne towers. The champagne itself is satisfactory: its taste is pleasant and its color fine, though it is also nothing so frivolous as to seem obscene coming from a recovering nation. Arthur is very sure he's soon to hear something about it from Francis, the moment that idiot gets his chance to find Arthur in the crowd. 

Arthur hopes he will soon. He is loath to seek out the man himself, to make him think Arthur has worried over his condition, and thus upset the delicate balance of familiar distaste they express to each other in public. It would shake something a little too close, a little too private, for Arthur to so uncharacteristically show that he cares. That being said, he has worried for his sometimes friend, sometimes enemy, and he does honestly wish to see how Francis fairs, whether the pains and wounds that must have crippled him during the war have healed at all. 

For now he has other things to worry about. 

Though Alfred conducted himself adequately, Arthur was not oblivious to his reaction to the new King of Clubs. In fact he is reasonably sure most of the Courts saw it. It's another thing he would like to speak to Francis of, because the way in which Alfred stilled, meeting Ivan's gaze, that was more than mere surprise. It was more than emotion.

Another King might be able to tell him what caused Alfred such distress. He and his King are not close. They have not yet revealed to each other the wounds and secrets they carry within themselves, and yet Arthur knows that something has profoundly disturbed his King.

For now he catches a glimpse of Alfred over the heads of mingling Courtiers, politicians, knights and celebrities and mollifies himself with the image of Alfred laughing with a young woman he doesn't recognize. She is wearing Diamonds colors. The uniform of one of Diamonds' knights. She has the canted eyes and dark hair of one of Yao's people, which is unusual in someone from Diamonds. The old regimes and races and ethnic groups that came before Time split their world in four have little meaning in politics these days. People have mixed just about everywhere, but Yao's people are ancient and have owned the land Spades now rules for centuries before this nation became what it is today. They were its original rulers. If anything, Arthur's people are outsiders here, or they would be. Yao's people are rarely found outside its borders, though he supposes more may have emigrated in the years since his coronation. 

Had Time not intervened, they would be separate and warring still over trivialities. Color, creed, ancestry. The time for wars made over such things passed centuries ago. 

Arthur shakes his head and lifts a glass of champagne from a passing tray. This is not the time to worry over ancient history. He is about to give in and seek Francis out himself when the menace swoops in from the side of him and grasps his free hand. Fool that he is, Francis bows his head and kisses Arthur's hand in a flirtatious gesture. Arthur, predictably, yanks it back as Francis slides closer, curling one arm around Arthur's waist. “How are you my dear Queen?” Francis asks smoothly, catching the hand Arthur is holding his champagne glass in before Arthur either drops it or succumbs to his instinctual urge to throw it in Francis' face. “You look lovely, but if you keep scowling at me all of that work your poor hairdresser goes through to keep that mop of yours from looking like a porcupine’s spikes will go to waste.”

“Francis,” Arthur responds coolly, getting a tenuous grip on his temper. “Unhand me will you?”

“It isn't safe or smart to let someone of your background escape so easily.” 

Arthur flushes. He shoves Francis away because now is not the time or place for this ass to be bringing up such things. Uncomfortably Arthur glances around to be sure no one overheard. It still makes him uneasy, the idea that someone who has no business knowing might discover where their Queen came from. He's... well, he is actually rather proud of some of it, but it's his and not their business and there are so many pointless troubles it could cause him if they did find out. “I have told you repeatedly not to say such things in public.” 

Francis smiles at him. It’s a fond smile, a familiar smile, and not mocking at all. He lifts Arthur's champagne glass (when did he get that?) to his lips and takes a sip, grimacing but refraining from commenting on it. “Forgive me darling. Instinct. It has been too long.” 

That it has. Arthur takes the apology for what it’s worth, more so because Francis rarely apologizes for his flirtations. 

The floor between them seems to widen. Arthur doesn't know what to say to him. How are you, are you well, both seem inadequate. It seems equally pointless to apologize for their last encounter. Francis understood why Arthur had to leave him behind to Hearts’ mercy. Francis forced him to go. Francis would have done the same were their circumstances reversed. Even so it eats at Arthur, and for once he doesn't have the energy to insult the man or spar with him. 

So lost is he in his thoughts that he doesn't notice Francis close the distance between them until Francis touches his chin and lifts his head. That damned fond smile stares back at him, a smile that makes the guilt in Arthur's gut all the worse, for it reminds him just how long they've known each other, and just how much they've put each other through. “Lovely, you know better. What's done is done, and I am healing. There is nothing you could have changed.” 

Healing. Francis is still healing. Before Arthur he looks well, his hair carefully curled and glossy, his eyes bright, his skin healthy. Or so Arthur thinks, until he catches glimpse of spots carefully hidden under make up and that Francis is standing with a little less energy in his step than usual. “How is Diamonds?” Arthur asks him, because he doesn't know what else to say. 

“Recovering. Your nation's aid has been of great help.” 

“And your new Queen?” It's all very impersonal, Arthur's questions. 

“A darling. Little Elise will be a force to be reckoned with, I think. She is young.” Francis' eyes twinkle. “I say to you because you are my friend, Arthur dear, that perhaps she cannot match you yet, but there may come a day when she can.”

That is good to hear. Diamonds’ former Queen was powerful, but not enough to match magic with Kiku when their time came. Though Arthur hopes such a contest will never come to be, it is encouraging to hear that the young, delicate-looking girl that is now Diamonds' Queen might be able to hold her own. 

Laughter catches Arthur's attention. Alfred's, he hears. It's rather loud. Were he the sort to care he might have thought it sounded forced, but it does remind him of his imperative question. “Francis, I must ask you seriously.” Francis' head tilts, his expression bemused. “The new King of Clubs, what do you think of him?”

Francis sobers visibly. I was right, Arthur thinks. It wasn't mere nerves that disturbed his King. There is something about Ivan Braginski that has rattled Alfred. 

“I can tell you little,” Francis admits. “We know as much of Clubs' new Court as you do, I suspect. But I could feel his power when he stepped into the room. That man is....” Francis grimaces. “I could not match him, in my current state. Perhaps not even at my greatest. Perhaps only if circumstances were on my side. Your young King....”

Arthur resists flinching, but he knows Francis reads him well enough to notice his discomfort. “Your young King,” Francis continues. “He sensed it as clearly as I did, I believe. There is something not entirely right about young Ivan's strength.”

“Not right?” It wasn't merely that he was powerful?

“I cannot tell you more of use.” Of course he couldn't. Typical useless Francis. In his irritation Arthur refrains from admitting that what little he did learn is of some use. It is somewhat gratifying to know that his King is not a complete idiot.

It is disturbing to know that there is more to Ivan than mere power, and that more than one King has noticed it. Briefly Arthur wonders whether Hearts' new King felt the same. 

“Arthur, darling.” Francis' tone drops. Startled, Arthur is drawn from his contemplation back to the present, and it is then that he realizes they have drawn themselves into a secluded part of the room. Francis' face is uncharacteristically somber, and when he reaches out to brush Arthur's cheek, Arthur is at a loss to explain why he doesn't pull away. Guilt, perhaps. 

It takes a moment, but as he always does (not always, often, always in public) he pulls away. The smile Francis offers him holds none of his usual mockery. Instead it is distressingly sincere, and that bothers Arthur far more than his mockery would have. “Arthur, I am fine. You needn't worry.”

“Like hell I'm worried over you, idiot,” Arthur spits back, drawing away. It's instinct more than actual malice that causes him to say it. As he turns Francis laughs at him, the truth of his intentions read despite his words. 

Francis passes him by, patting a hand over his hair and mussing it into its usual nest of spikes. He glides off into the crowd. Arthur sputters and gives a momentary pause to try and straighten his hair again, because no matter that he ignores Francis' quip about it he is a little self-conscious. It is then that he notices.

The bastard walked off with his champagne.

Arthur stalks into the crowd after him, ready to run him down and give him a piece of his mind, the lout, and bumps himself into an innocent bystander.

“Forgive me.” Arthur straightens his collar and turns to offer his unfortunate victim a hand. Frustrated though he is, there is no call for him to be rude.

The hand that reaches for him is delicate in appearance, but calloused. Dark eyes meet his, and the pair of them freeze. 

Arthur suspected he would encounter Kiku face to face at this party. He even gave a brief thought to seeking him out, but so much stopped him. With Francis at least they had not so recently been at odds. Arthur left him, he still feels the guilt of that, but he knows Francis understands. He knows Francis may, someday, forgive him, if he hasn't yet. 

Arthur is solely responsible for the shaky state of Kiku's health. He is the reason this man spent months in a coma. He is the reason Kiku was not present to defend his King to the bitter end. 

The war still lies between them, the remnants of it palatable in the hesitation of their hands. But Kiku is not one to allow grievances to come before propriety. He takes the offered hand delicately and allows Arthur to pull him to his feet, and then calmly straightens the smooth lines of his clothing. At his own leisure, he bows deeply to Arthur in the way of his people, a habit that has carried over into his adulthood from his parents. Such gestures are unusual in Hearts. In Spades, the most dominant local culture still practices such traditions and thus Arthur is not thrown by it. He bows back, his own mannerisms less instinctual but still well-trained. It will be a long while, Arthur thinks, until their King can do the same so smoothly. Fortunately such thinks are less necessary amongst polite society than they were. 

He and Kiku have always been a pair to keep to older traditions. Before the war it was something they appreciated about each other. Before the war they had so much in common.

Now Arthur notes the burn scars visible upon what little skin Kiku shows. They're healing and well concealed, but Arthur knows whose hands are responsible for them. He knows where they are intimately. 

He isn't sure what to say to Kiku because of it. 

Kiku solves the problem for both of them has he raises his head, his hands serenely clasped in front of him. “I have been meaning to say something to you, Queen of Spades,” he says, “and I hope it is a sentiment you will accept.” It is the incredible certainty in everything Kiku is that gives Arthur pause. He looks like a man who questions nothing: disturbingly similar to that same man Arthur fought only a year ago, but with a serenity in him that is somehow more. This is Kiku himself, Arthur recognizes. Not the automaton that he became under his King's influence, bent to the force of his nation's Will. This is the Queen of Hearts. The true Mind of Hearts is himself again. These words Kiku has for him, they come from him alone.

“Thank you.”

Arthur remains at a loss for what to say. Kiku meets his eyes with stoic sincerity and does not repeat himself. He doesn't have to. The gravity of his words are felt. 

Those words alone are an expression of so much more.

And so Arthur is forced, unwilling, to accept that what he has done to Kiku has been forgiven. Kiku is not one to offer thanks easily. Arthur knows that, knows Kiku, that well. 

He thought he'd known Kiku that well, until the war. He'd thought his friend lost in the war.

His friend is here, Arthur realizes. Before him, sane once again. His friend has survived. 

Arthur offers Kiku his hand and smiles when Kiku accepts and shakes it. “It is good to see you again.” 

“Likewise.” 

Likewise. Time it is good to see his friend, his real friend, at last. 

They fall into easy silence. Their silence. Arthur offers Kiku a glass of champagne as a tray passes, which Kiku accepts gracefully. Arthur indulges himself as well. It's only fair, seeing as Francis denied him his first. 

“What do you think of your new King?” Arthur asks, curious. He knows Kiku well enough to know that he won't reveal anything delicate about his Court, and does not expect such a thing, but he is curious. He knows little about Ludwig. 

“A good man,” Kiku replies. “He is hard working and I believe he will lead our nation back to prosperity.” 

“You approve then?” 

A nod. “You do not.” 

Arthur knows he should not be so surprised by Kiku's astute observation. It surprises him anyway. He doesn't have to ask what Kiku is alluding to. They understand each other better than that. For the sake of delaying his answer, Arthur takes a sip of his champagne. “He is young.” 

“Young, but a former soldier.”

Arthur wants to ask Kiku how he knows that. “You're interested in him?”

Kiku nods. “We've met once, did you know that?” Arthur didn't. He shakes his head. “I remember the battlefield in bits and pieces. Some of it is unclear, but other parts. He was a Sargent, was he not? I remember the insignia. And I remember the look on his face as he gathered the remnants of his unit together. He would not have survived that charge.”

“He did.” Arthur doesn't know the specific charge Kiku speaks of. There are too many of them. He does recall a little of Alfred's past from their brief meetings. He remembers the loss of Alfred’s commanding officer, and his efforts to protect his men, his brother, and even Arthur himself in that trench. He remembers finding him later, entirely by accident, in a field hospital with injuries Arthur thought he would never recover from. 

Time, it seems, is kind. And perhaps it was not coincidence that they met after all. Time has its ways, and it seems it saw fit to reveal Spades' King-to-be to more than just him. A sense of humor. Could one say that Time has a rather morbid one, Arthur wonders? Would that be too sacrilegious? 

“What did you think of him then,” Arthur asks, curious.

“I remember thinking him a fool.” Kiku sips his champagne. “He could not possibly stand against a Queen. His men could not possibly survive me. And yet—”

“He did.” 

“Because you were there.” A very strange sensation falls over Arthur. He was there? When was this, he wonders? He doesn't recall such a scene. “The day you defeated me.” 

“Alfred wasn't there that day.”

“He was. Of the few things I remember clearly, that is one.” 

Arthur wants to argue with Kiku. He wants to pretend it was a trick of his friend's corrupted mind. Alfred couldn't have been there and survived. Not a Queen's battle; they'd left the field devastated in their wake and Arthur remembers the biting grief he felt, knowing the men who were left, who could not evacuate, must be dead. 

He remembers Kiku, floating in lines of Spade-blue power, captured at last by the Seal Arthur bound him with, and that moment when Arthur could at last survey the damage their battle caused. The space at his feet was a glassy crater scattered with bodies. He could see limbs twisted amongst the debris. Ground Zero of their battle was a nightmare. 

Alfred couldn't have survived that. 

“He must have managed to evacuate his men,” Arthur supposes. 

Kiku nods. “In the face of a battle between two Queens.”

“His brother had a hand in that no doubt.” Though Arthur remembers the determination in Alfred's eyes in those trenches. He allows that Alfred may have kept his head together enough to manage such a thing on his own. He doesn't want to admit that, but he does. Grudgingly he lets the matter go, and Kiku simply accepts him doing so and does not question it. “I don't know what sort of King he will make,” Arthur admits. “Perhaps I am afraid to learn.”

“Perhaps.” Kiku looks up at Arthur. “I would request a favor of you.”

“Oh?”

“An introduction. I would very much like to meet your King personally, and I suspect he would not be comfortable if I were to approach on my own.” 

“All right.” Arthur can't help but be curious as to how that will proceed.


	12. The Court of Hearts

Alfred does his best to keep an eye on Ivan as he mingles with the crowd. He takes equal care to keep the King of Clubs from noticing his attention. To be completely honest he isn't sure how well he's doing at that. The Prime Minister has made it his personal duty to introduce Alfred to absolutely everyone he can, and the vast majority of those people are the type that slip right beyond Alfred's attention. He's pretty sure he's being rude, but that niggling hint of Ivan's power behind him, to the side of him, just beyond his gaze, keeps drawing his attention. 

He laughs a little too loudly at one of Diamonds' minister's jokes. It feels fake. He doesn't remember what the guy said, just saw his PM laughing so thought he should too. Where's Mattie when he needs him, he's better at this kind of thing than Alfred is. 

(When Alfred is too focused on something else to do it right.) 

It is about a half an hour into their meandering that Alfred realizes the people he really wants to meet, the other Courts, are people that his Prime Minister has been strategically avoiding. He blames his distraction for that. He's kept partial track of Ivan through that time, but it's as they pass by Hearts' Jack and a young man that looks like his brother that Alfred remembers he wanted to meet that one. 

His PM passes by, drawing him along. When Alfred hesitates he finds a hand on his elbow, and that draws his attention away from tracking Ivan around the room enough that he removes his PM's hand from him. “Sorry sir,” he says, remembering some degree of politeness. Now that he's realized what's going on though, he's not having any of these games. He doesn't know his PM's reason for it, but he's done with it. “I've got someone I need to meet.” 

“My King, there are other ministers—”

“They can wait. You want our Court to have a good relationship with the new ones right? They might think I'm ignoring them!” 

His Prime Minister has nothing much he can say in response, and so he lets Alfred go. Yao, standing nearby, moves to his side. “I wondered when you would assert yourself.” He says it casually as he offers Alfred a drink: whiskey on the rocks, something Alfred enjoys and didn't realize Yao noticed he liked. He should have expected otherwise. 

“Was that you?” Alfred asks him straight. “Testing me again?” 

“The Prime Minister is. You haven't been in public much since your coronation. He is curious how quickly you would realize that your duty here is not to the politicians, but to relations amongst the Courts.”

“So he wanted me to leave?”

Yao nods. “He may be somewhat perturbed that it took you so long, but that was not a misunderstanding of your duties, was it.” He says it as if he doesn't need an answer. Alfred's pretty sure he already knows what it is. 

“The King of Clubs—”

“He is... unusual.” 

That's a nice way to say it. Alfred takes a sip of his drink. It's good. More expensive than he's used to, melting like caramel on his tongue. It tastes equally decadent and out of place in his hands. “I was going to say “Hi” to Hearts' Jack.” 

Yao accepts the deflection. He chuckles, hiding it behind one of his sleeves. Alfred has no idea how he moves so smoothly in that outfit. There's so much fabric draped off of him. Alfred's seen paintings of old Courtiers and ministers in those types of outfits. He remembers them from school, from history classes he half slept through whenever they weren't talking about battles. They're the sort of thing Yao's people wore long before Time divided them. They're the sort of thing the first Courts of Spades took up again in memory of this land's deep history, for their beauty and the best of their memory. They haven't been popular wear in Spades for almost a hundred years.

They're an unsubtle testament to Yao's age. A reminder of just how much he has seen. A reminder that Alfred finds difficult to comprehend. He's too young, he thinks, to appreciate Yao’s garb as anything but a beautiful relic of the past. 

Yao seems to have satisfied whatever purpose he had, so Alfred continues on his initial goal. Hearts' Jack doesn't notice him immediately. He's too busy chattering cheerfully with what must be his twin, who looks far less pleased to be here. Pretty girls and comments about the food are all Alfred hears. The simplicity is refreshing, exhilarating even, and a weight off of his shoulders. Feliciano Vargas turns on his heel just before Alfred makes a comment to catch his attention and gleefully claps his hands.

“Glad you like the food.” Alfred grins. “Our chef'll be happy to hear it.” 

Feliciano's brother, who has not been introduced, rolls his eyes. Feliciano himself returns Alfred's smile with pure, unashamed sunlight. “I've never had Spades' cuisine before,” he admits, excited. “It's delicious. So different, but delicious. Do you think they'd teach me how to make it?”

A Jack who likes to cook. It's a surprise, but maybe not that much of one. Alfred chuckles. It's so gloriously normal. For a moment he feels as if Feliciano's just like him. Just a normal young man with a mark on him that makes him so much more. Just some poor sap caught in Time's stupid games, thrust into a world he never could nor wanted to comprehend. 

Alfred just wanted to be an engineer. Then a soldier, for a bit, because he couldn't just stand by and watch while Hearts invaded his home. He couldn't watch his friends and everyone around him sacrifice and suffer without giving at least that much himself. During the war he'd thought maybe, when it was over, he'd have the time to go back to school. Study mechanics, get his license, start a shop all his own. 

Maybe Feliciano would have been a chef, if Time hadn't interfered. Maybe they all would have been something so different. 

Alfred feels for a moment as if he should be cautious beside Hearts' Jack. For a moment he considers he should regard this man as an enemy. Their nations were at war not so long ago. The cheerful realness of Feliciano is too much for him to think that way for more than a moment's breath. 

“I'll ask our cook tomorrow,” Alfred offers. Time knows he understands wanting something so simple amidst so much that is new. 

He is so caught up in that sun-bright smile, the gratitude in Feliciano, that he doesn't notice his Queen, nor his Queen's unusual companion, approach. 

When he does notice, sunlight isn't enough to keep him from freezing where he stands, to keep ice and fear and a dark curl of rage from tightening on instinct in his gut.

You promised you'd give him a chance, Alfred reminds himself, shifting his spectacles on his nose uncomfortably. Promised no one but himself, but promised all the same. And yet here before him stands Honda Kiku, the very same Queen of Hearts before whom he sounded his men to retreat. The same Queen whose power took his leg and damaged his eye in the collateral firestorm of his final battle.

Arthur is standing at Kiku's side, just a hint in front of him, as if he were the one who led the Queen of Hearts here. A curious familiarity stands between them, a comfortable companionship that Alfred cannot understand. The last these two saw of each other, so far as he knows, was on a battlefield of blood and death. 

How can Arthur, his fussy, fire-ball of a Queen, be so calm? 

Alfred remembers his initial reaction to the Queen of Hearts. That visceral tightening of his gut. His thought that this man should not be here. That slight hint of terror and terrible memory. Alfred doesn't remember losing his leg. To this day he remembers pushing his brother in front of him as the maelstrom of a Queen's battle explodes at their heels. He remembers white-hot light, a fierce grip of one single-minded thought: run, run, run, and no more. 

When he woke he was told his men made it to safety. They'd gotten to the edge of the battleground in time. Matthew told him that, the very first thing. They'd had some injuries, but they hadn't lost anyone.

Alfred remembers breathing a gasping sigh of relief. 

And then asking: “Mattie, I—why can't I see?” 

His leg wasn't even the first of it. Blinded by ash and light, his right eye could see dim shadows and blurs. He didn't yet know enough to realize his left could see nothing at all. Though Time has repaired the worst of the damage, a fuzzy haze still lingers in his vision. Without his spectacles the sharp clarity of his childhood is nothing but a memory. 

And so now, when Alfred meets Honda Kiku face to face for the very first time without the barriers of war or court propriety between them, he is at a loss for what to do or say. There is history between them that the Queen of Hearts cannot possibly know of nor understand, or so Alfred thinks. Yet stranger still, Alfred cannot fathom how Kiku can so easily stand by the side of the man who all but killed him in that battle. So far as Alfred knows, Arthur left Kiku comatose and broken and very near death. 

The Jack of Hearts breaks the silence. “Kiku, did you try the pastries?” he asks cheerfully. He's filled a small plate and he holds it out to his Queen. The softest quirk of a smile, the sort that seems fond, but reserved, cracks the serene nothingness of Kiku's expression. Alfred knows in his gut that it is genuine. 

The Queen delicately lifts a powdered pastry from his Jack's plate and holds his hand under it, biting into it with the careful daintiness of someone very well versed in court etiquette. He hums a soft sound of approval. “It has been a long time since I've tasted Spades sweets,” he comments. He turns to Alfred. Cupping the pastry carefully, he bows deep in the manner of Spades. Alfred, startled, finds himself bowing in return. 

In a surprising instant, Alfred remembers some of his history. Honda Kiku, Queen of Hearts, is of a very old family. The details escape him, but he remembers this: the Honda family is a Spades family at its core. That name is not uncommon in the coastal island cities to the East. There are stories about those families. Not just the Honda family, but others. Families that, before Time, lived amongst mountains of fire, and when their mountains burned, fled to the four corners of the world to build new lives on greener earth. 

They're legends. Alfred remembers them best because they're stories, and he's fond of stories. None of them are probably true, but it is true that there are others like the Queen of Hearts who live not only in Spades, but in all four of the nations. Still, Honda is a Spades surname. 

What must it have been like, Alfred wonders, fighting against the land your family once called home? Did Kiku think of that when he faced Spades' armies, or was his ancestry so long distant from Spades that it didn't even occur to him. 

“Alfred,” Arthur interrupts smoothly. “This is Queen Honda Kiku of Hearts. He has been eager to meet you.” 

The warning in Arthur's voice is unnecessary. Alfred has already swallowed back his anger and his hurt. Feliciano has already broken the delicate strain in the air between them. So, though Alfred wouldn't have thought himself capable a moment ago, Alfred is able to offer this foreign Queen his hand in a Diamonds' style greeting, and a mostly genuine smile. “Nice to meet you,” he replies. 

He chooses to forgo Hearts' more common form of greeting. The familiarity of a kiss on the cheek is something Alfred thinks this Queen would find uncomfortable. Alfred definitely isn't ready for that himself. So, Diamonds. 

Kiku takes his hand with the hesitance of someone not unfamiliar with the gesture (he wouldn't be, it's a fairly typical greeting across all four kingdoms) but also not entirely sure of the cross between familiar acceptance and formality it represents. Diamonds' often professional, business-like demeanor conveys what Alfred hopes is exactly what he wishes to in this moment. Acceptance rather than the distance of a Spades greeting. A hope for common ground and mutual benefit. But not complete friendliness. Nothing so close as to presume all matters between them are forgiven.

He catches the thoughtful expression on his own Queen's face out of the corner of his eye. Arthur says nothing, but Alfred senses curious approval in him. It's gratifying, even if he doesn't think Arthur realizes he did this on purpose. He probably just thinks that, since Alfred's ancestry is closer to Diamonds than Spades or Hearts anyway, that is what he's used to. 

Alfred doesn't seen any reason to correct him. 

“I admit I am... relieved... to greet you in person.” Kiku hesitates in his speech, but it is the hesitance of a man who chooses his words carefully rather than one unsure of the situation. His choice of wording conveys more than Alfred expected to hear. 

It is almost an apology. Almost. Alfred isn't sure what to think of that. “Likewise,” he answers. He plants a cheerful smile on his face. “Enjoying the party?” 

A soft hum of agreement is his answer. “It is certainly worthy of Spades' hospitality.”

Which means that Arthur wasn't likely to find out what Alfred asked of their staff. Good. 

Awkward silence follows. Awkward because Alfred doesn’t really know what to say to this man, and oddly not because Kiku doesn’t seem to mind or expect more. In that regard, maybe it is only awkward for Alfred. He feels as if he should say something, ask how the other man is feeling, crack a joke to lighten the mood, or anything else, but the words feel dry on his tongue. What do you say to a man who almost killed you and doesn't realize it? 

Feliciano breaks the silence. Perhaps the friendly Jack can handle its tension even less than Alfred can. “I heard you were a Sargent.” As if bringing up the war isn't a monumentally tactless idea. Alfred can see Arthur wincing. “Did you fight at Bow's Point?”

“There, and a few other places,” Alfred answers, trying to keep it casual. Trying not to let the way the thought of the battle for Bow's Point makes his throat tighten show. 

Feliciano stares at him, fascinated. “Wow, that—how did you make it out.”

“Feli—” warns the Jack's twin. 

Alfred hasn't heard him speak yet. He hasn't even really noticed the defensive glare in his sharp eyes, or the tension in his stance. He eyes the young man, looks him over, and then grins. “I'm just that awesome.”

The brother stares at him. Feliciano's eyes grow round. Arthur lets out a sound that sounds somewhat like a tea kettle whistling, and Kiku....

The Queen of Hearts laughs. 

Actually laughs. A genuine, hidden-behind-his-hand chuckle, his eyes squeezed closed and his shoulders quivering. He just laughs. 

In that moment, Alfred realizes that he could like this man. Maybe someday, when the history between them isn’t so close. When he can appreciate Kiku’s simple, joyful acceptance of Alfred’s take on their story. There is no mockery in Kiku’s laughter. It sounds again like relief. 

Like hope.

Like maybe the war really is over, and now they have a real chance to move on. 

Alfred catches his Queen’s eye for a brief moment, and he thinks he sees the slightest glimmer of genuine warmth, before it is hidden again in his exasperation. He savors the victory and carries on.


	13. A Glimpse of the Road Worst Traveled

Matthew wanders the edges of the party both grateful for and a little amazed by his own anonymity. Unlike his brother and the rest of the court, he remains without introduction. He notices and nods to the bearers of whispers as he passes those who have no doubt noticed his relation to the King and he wonders what they’re saying about him. 

He isn’t approached. Not even by the other courts. He wonders if that is normal, or if there’s just something about him that makes him so unapproachable. It’s lonely in a way. He has no one to talk to. 

At the same time it’s a comfort, because he doesn’t know what he would say to these people. The most elite of every nation gathered together. He shudders at the thought of finding words for them and is grateful his brother must do that rather than him. 

“You’re looking lonely.” 

An arm nudges his side, startling Matthew from his musings. A hand reaches into his line of sight holding a glass of champagne. Matthew turns and finds himself staring into scarlet eyes. Eyes that make his heart race, because he recognizes the stranger immediately. 

_Matthew watches Arthur close the door to Peter’s room, uncomfortably aware of the tragedy mellowing his Queen’s mood, and of the horrors that boy now represents. Peter is a listless child. Arthur tells Matthew he was once happy, once energetic to the point of annoyance, and Matthew sees in his Queen’s anguished eyes how much he wishes that were still true._

_“That could happen to me, couldn’t it,” Matthew whispers._

_Arthur nods and draws him away from that room, into the comfort of his workshop. The Queen has an office of sorts, but behind it is the strangely comfortable clutter of a space meant for the work of hands, not the work of pens. Herbs hang drying from the rafters. A wooden bench lies strewn with notes and books and half-drawn patterns. Matthew feels he should be more uncomfortable there: this workshop isn’t a mechanic’s or a carpenter’s. The clear touches of magic and wizardry are undeniable, and in an age of science and reason they seem out of place._

_They seem, in Arthur’s presence, somehow right._

_Arthur brews them cups of tea and perches himself up on a wooden stool as Matthew sips it gratefully. The tea is warm, comforting, and it doesn’t taste like some exotic, too-perfect beverage. It tastes like home._

_Matthew hasn’t felt at home for a very long time._

_“I wish there was someone who could explain it to you. I can’t ask Peter to, not…” Arthur swallows heavily and Matthew hears and understands. Asking a child so devastated to speak of what has become of him seems cruel._

_“How long will he stay here?”_

_“A year and a day.” Arthur bows his head. “A Shaded Joker may spend a year and a day preparing for their journey. After that, he will have no nation to call his home.”_

A year and a day. 

Lingering in the back of his head, as Matthew stares at this stranger, is the painful reminder that as this party continues, a young boy is packing what little he has in the world. A young boy is stepping away from the life he has known for thirty years without a home, fated to wander until his life ends.

But this man, whom he recognizes before him…. 

_“I am only grateful he did not suffer a worse fate.”_

Matthew knows only vaguely what Arthur means. Jokers are enigmas. They are tragedies in human form. They are warnings, memories of misfortune. In school they were taught very little about them, only this: it is bad luck to refuse sanctuary to a Joker. Jokers may never linger in one place. They are fated to wander until their deaths. 

Two memories exist: those who are memories of fallen kings, and those who are memories of the corrupt. 

A Shaded Joker is a tragedy.

A Black Joker is a warning: this is what happens when the Path of Time is lost. 

The man’s white hair and scarlet eyes are striking, but they are not the reason Matthew recognizes him. His clothing is a hint: not a person in this room is dressed entirely in black but him. He wears the cut of his suit like a uniform or a shield, his shoulders just a little too straight for the casual slouch he is attempting to affect. His clothing helps. 

But it is the feel of him that seals his identity. Matthew knows he could never mistake this man for anything else. He feels the emptiness inside of him like an open wound tearing at his heart. Being in Peter’s presence is painful; Matthew can feel his loss just as clearly, as if the power of Time within him is warning him, but this….

How can he stand it, Matthew wonders? 

The man laughs. “Don’t be shy.” He nudges the drink into Matthew’s hands. 

Time, how can he laugh?

Matthew takes the drink out of courtesy and sips from it. He contemplates drowning himself in it, because maybe, just maybe, it will dull the ache in his chest. “You are?” 

“Gilbert.” No last name. Maybe he had one once, but Matthew suspects he fails to mention it on purpose. “You’re the new Ace of Spades.”

And Gilbert must be the former Ace of Clubs, Matthew realizes. A Black Joker is an Ace who must have killed their former King. As far as Matthew knows, there isn’t another one living. 

Matthew nods hurriedly when he realizes he failed to answer, flushing into his drink as his strange companion laughs. Laughs with a cracked cackle that sounds so genuine it jars against the empty feeling of him. 

“Don’t worry so much,” Gilbert goads him. “I came over here because I thought you might want to talk, not ‘cause I was worried you’d offend me. You’re not going to say anything I haven’t heard.”

As if he knows Matthew has questions boiling under his skin that he can’t bear to ask. 

Matthew realizes as Gilbert says what he does that this is an offer he can’t refuse. No one else in Spades can tell him how to be an Ace. No one else knows what it really means, or has the heart to. Yao has already warned him about approaching the other courts. 

_“The Aces of the other nations are not entirely unknown to us, but we do not reveal them to each other as casually as we do ourselves. The Ace is the nation’s heart. We cannot afford to have it hanging on our shirtsleeves. As powerful as you are you can still be hurt.”_

But a Black Joker no longer has ties to his former court. A Joker was once an Ace himself. 

Matthew freezes. “I don’t know what to ask,” he admits. “I can’t imagine I can understand what it feels like to lose your King, but at the same time I know that someday—”

“It sucks,” Gilbert tells him bluntly. “It fucking sucks.”

Matthew winces. He feels he should be unsettled by such crude language at a party like this, but he was a soldier once. No one has been so honest with him since he left the battlefield. In a lot of ways, it’s a comfort. “How do I keep Alfred safe?”

“He’s your brother right?” Those scarlet eyes narrow to slits that focus distantly across the room. Matthew can’t quite tell what or who Gilbert is staring at, but he has the fleeting suspicion it’s someone important. He nods in response. “You can’t keep him safe.”

“Then what am I—”

“You’re the Heart of Spades,” Gilbert tells him. “You can’t protect him from everything. You can try. You’ll probably try as hard as you can. But there’s a point where—” The first inklings of true discomfort rattle Gilbert. “If you let it go too far, you’ll lose yourself to it too. And then the whole kingdom’s lost.”

“What happened in Clubs?” Matthew dares to ask. They don’t really know. None of them do. All they know is that the old regime is dead. The new King dresses in plain clothes and their ambassador speaks of revolution. They don’t know anything.

“I let it go too far,” Gilbert answers. He clinks his glass against Matthew’s and winks. “Talk to me again sometime, yeah? I always wind up at places like this and it’s boring otherwise.” 

Then he vanishes into the crowd, clad all in black though he is, as if he belongs to all of it.


	14. Rivals

The party lingers well into the night. There are more meetings, more tense moments, more laughter. Ivan’s presence never escapes Alfred for long. He finds himself constantly looking over his shoulder, feeling Ivan’s power in the corners of the room, and stumbling across brief flashes of green in the crowd of gold, red, and blue. 

Arthur has more luck with the Court of Clubs. His meeting with their Queen is brief and confusing. There is no warmth in a face that should be warm, he feels. There is fierce power behind her stare, absolute and rigid belief.

And something terrifyingly constricted. As if chains wrap around her heart. 

Arthur is a master of his magics. Though he keeps his gifts to himself, for Spades’ relationship with magic is sometimes a strained one, he knows its feel intimately. He shakes Queen Elizaveta’s hand just once as they meet at the edge of the dance floor. 

He feels no magic in her touch. Nothing, just a disturbing void. As if somehow, inexplicably, that which should be her birthright has been stripped from her. 

Her hands are terribly strong. He has no doubt that in a contest of strength, Elizaveta could defeat him handily, but he worries for a nation with such a young court, if the spiritual power of their Queen has been lost. 

He keeps his own council about her, too disturbed to explain it, even though Yao gives him that challenging, too-knowing look of his. Neither his King nor his Jack can do anything about it anyway. 

Alfred inevitable encounter with his own counterpart is equally brief, and equally troubling. 

Despite dancing around each other for the entire evening, Alfred isn’t surprised when he can no longer do so. 

In a way he is relieved. He knows he is going to face this man someday. He isn’t sure he wants to. Ivan’s undeniable power clutches at his insecurities and brings them to the fore. But when faced with that power, he holds his head high and there is nothing he can think of but that he cannot show weakness in the face of Ivan’s power. 

Ivan greets him with a smile and the eyes of a predator seeking out every little crack in Alfred’s armor. His grip hurts; Alfred hopes he’s offered the same in turn. There is a spark of contest, of competition, he feels, as if he’s being assessed not as a threat but as a rival.

He finds himself surprised. Rival? That isn’t what he expected. Ivan’s strength is so clear to him, he can’t fathom why Ivan would see him as any contest. 

“Congratulations on your coronation.” Ivan’s voice is soft, gentler than his large frame suggests, and his words are clipped with the formality of someone used to such pleasantries. The way he’s dressed, Alfred wondered if Clubs just didn’t have the funds to outfit their court, or if they were trying to make a statement.

Make a statement, he decides. One entirely opposite to that which Spades has presented tonight. Not a show of strength, power, and wealth the country barely has but…something. Something else. He isn’t sure he quite understands what. 

“You too,” he returns in kind. “If Clubs needs anything, Spades will do what it can to help.”

Ivan nods to him politely. “Clubs will take care of its own. What we have is sufficient.” There is an edge of challenge to his tone. Can Spades stay the same? 

Feeling his throat tighten, Alfred offers anyway, “Still, anything we can do.” He releases Ivan’s hand and tips his glass in the man’s direction. “Maybe we’ll have more time to catch up later.”

Ivan’s eyes glitter as Alfred leaves (runs from) his side. “I’m certain we will.”

With a shudder Alfred returns to the relatively comfortable safety of his Jack and wonders exactly why such an innocent conversation makes his skin crawl. Yao, who has been watching their interaction in silence, allows his presence without judgement, which is more than his Queen would do. “Is there any way to set up some kind of relief fund,” Alfred asks him. “For Clubs, or any of the others? If they get back on their feet more quickly we’d have more partners to trade with….”

And he doesn’t like the idea of that dead-eyed smile on the lips of the King of a desperate nation. Maybe Clubs is doing just fine, like Ivan says, but Alfred’s heart screams otherwise.


	15. The Tragedy of Clubs

Fifteen hours after the party ends, three hours after the courts of the nations are packed up into their motorcars and carriages, Alfred finds himself seated across from a type of man he never expected to meet. 

Meeting Peter as a Joker was one thing. The kid, just a year after his father’s death, is only just starting to pull himself together. He’s leaving them tomorrow, the pull of a Joker’s fate inevitably taking him from them. 

Alfred wishes he could find more sympathy for the boy, but he doesn’t really know Peter well. He knows his Queen is in a tizzy over him. The gathering last night distracted Arthur from Peter’s coming departure, but now there is nothing standing between them and that absolute truth. 

Arthur is here now only because he has to be. Only because what the man before them has brought is invaluable to the security of their country. It is painfully clear he would rather be elsewhere. 

Yao has a little red pouch in his hands, which he has been embroidering for the past few days. “For good luck,” he says, when asked. Alfred knows who it is meant for. Yao may not be so obvious as Arthur in his care for Peter, but it is clear he worries for the boy all the same. 

Today, Peter is leaving with this man. With this Joker. 

Gilbert Beilschmidt lounges on the windowsill as if he owns the place. His stark black clothing is jarring against his pale features. Despite the gravity of the news he brings them, he acts as if he has barely a care in the world. 

Darkly Alfred wonders how many cares he can have left. An Ace forced to murder his own King can’t be all that stable. 

“So it’s true. Clubs’ court is dead.” 

Gilbert nods. “You all knew it wasn’t going well, the war and everything. Our King was putting everything towards the war he could. Everything. Food, soldiers, there wasn’t enough left for the people who stayed behind.”

He goes on. He speaks of revolution. He speaks of his King’s desperation, his refusal to end the war and pull Clubs back when Clubs clearly could not maintain its army. “The people were starving. They were angry. He wouldn’t listen to them; I could feel him fighting them. Every little step of the way, he wouldn’t listen to their Will. He started executing dissenters.”

Alfred shudders. A King turning against the Will of his people. To the point of killing them. 

“The Queen and the Jack tried to talk him out of it.” The Queen. The Mind of the Nation. Alfred glances at Arthur briefly and wonders what would happen if they were put in the same situation. “He had them killed too. After that, I couldn’t—I knew I couldn’t reason with him.”

“What happened Gilbert?” Arthur asks gently. 

“There was a group. Clubs citizens who wanted to overthrow the King. They’d been planning for years, but they didn’t have the power to take on the court. They wanted a new government, one that answered to the people. Something like Diamonds and Spades had, instead of absolute rule. Chances are the next King, whoever he was going to be, would hear that from them. There wasn’t much hope left for my fa—the King anyway.”

“So you helped them?” Arthur prompts.

“Yeah.” Gilbert laughs. “I helped them. Did the one thing they couldn’t do, and you know what they did then?” A mad light glitters in his eyes, playful and helpless fury that makes Alfred cringe to look upon. Time, that could be Matthew someday he realizes. If he loses his mind like Clubs’ King did. If he goes too far.

Matthew could be sitting across from the court of Hearts or Diamonds with the same mad, heartbroken light in his eyes. 

“A Black Joker gets twelve days to prepare their journey. Some kind of one for every division of Time bullshit. A Shaded Joker gets a year and a day. They kicked me out on day one. So sorry if I can’t tell you more.” 

He’ll leave them again today. As he’s meant to. As he has to, because a Joker can never be settled in one place for long. They’ve lost something too vital to be at home anywhere ever again. Such is their fate. 

“Gilbert,” Arthur asks. “Do you know where Ivan came from? Is he one of theirs?”

Gilbert shudders. “Can’t tell you much. He was with them when I met them. Pretty sure they grabbed him up because they thought he’d be a likely candidate for a new King. That or they thought they could use him for propaganda. Worked out for them either way.”

“Who is he then?”

“Artie, you’ve got an idea don’t you.” Gilbert grins. It’s only then that Alfred realizes what has been bothering him about this man the whole time. The pale hair, the rounded face. Slimmer and sharper, but with that predator’s grin. They don’t look that much alike, but there’s something there. Something beyond coincidence. “You know the King had a whole gaggle of us. I’m just the oldest. Lucky enough to be the one whose mother he cared for. Didn’t even know about Ivan until I met him two years ago, but you’re right.”

Alfred watches Arthur swallow. 

“He’s my bastard half-brother.”


	16. Weariness

“We need more news out of Clubs,” Arthur says, slumping uncharacteristically in his seat. 

He looks worn. Old. Like Gilbert’s story has settled a weight upon him that he isn’t ready to accept. He’s right though. Alfred is torn between the same sorts of ideas making tangled webs in his head and the thought that it isn’t really his job to plan that kind of thing, is it?

It was in the field. Not really, but he’d been pretty good at it. As Sargent his orders came from above, but he could always order his men to scope out the enemy before an attack. He always did when he had the chance. Better to know your enemy, know what they have, than go in blind. It’s the same sort of thing here, just on a larger scale. Clubs is an entire nation, not just one enemy camp, but the principles still work. 

“I know Clubs is buttoned up pretty tight right now, but is there anyone who ended up stuck on the wrong side of the border after the war we can talk to? Someone who might want a ticket home, and might still be a little loyal to the old King?”

Arthur stares at Alfred as if he’s grown a second head. For a moment Alfred expects his Queen to write him off, admonish him for his silliness, or just snap at him. 

When he doesn’t Alfred wonders when the second shoe is about to drop.

“We do have several refugee centers serving citizens of all four nations still operating on the borders,” Yao mentions. “Most have been resettled, but there may be some opportunities available.” 

Reluctantly, Arthur responds, “I will see what I can do,” and leaves it at that. Alfred finds himself a little disappointed, but it’s the Queen’s job to handle matters of international intelligence. 

So he lets it go.


	17. At the Edge of their Lonely Road

Matthew meets Gilbert at the door, noticing the man’s shuffling step, the way his fingers twitch against his pack. As if he is eager to leave.

“Never feels comfortable to be in one spot more than a few days,” Gilbert tells him, shrugging as if it isn’t a terrible cosmic punishment making him feel that way. A second, smaller pack sits next to the door. In another room Matthew knows that Arthur and Yao are saying a last goodbye to Peter. 

“It’s nice of you to take him with.” 

“Better than making him figure it out on his own.” Gilbert’s hands twist nervously along his pack straps in a way that belies his grin. “’sides, he’s just Shaded right? He won’t be a problem. You all seem to keep forgetting he’s not just a kid.”

Peter was an Ace, stopped in Time just as Matthew is. His King was crowned thirty years ago. Matthew supposes Gilbert has a point. 

“Where will you go next?” Matthew asks. Will I see you again soon? He does not. The court is there for him, of course, but having someone near who knows what he is going through is more of a comfort that Matthew realized. He certainly didn’t consider how he’d feel when it left him. 

“Diamonds, probably. I’ve got some old friends to check up on there. Plus, spreading the news.”

“Do you think there’s a chance it will work itself out?”

Those scarlet eyes narrow. A flash of anger draws lines in the corners of Gilbert’s eyes. “Those people.” He clenches his teeth. “You watch out for them if they start down here. They’re not just crazies talking nonsense. They get into people’s heads.” They got into mine, he doesn’t say. Matthew doesn’t need him to. “They’re not going to stop with Clubs, and with Ivan under their thumb….”

Gilbert and Peter leave a weight behind them that rattles Matthew to the core. Whatever is happening in Clubs, it’s only just beginning, he fears. 

There is worse to come.


	18. Ultimatum

Thirty seven days after the Courts visit Spades, Clubs’ ambassador issues them an ultimatum. It’s short, vicious, and an undeniable demonstration of their intentions when it comes to them in a paper-wrapped box.

The bloodstained letter is wrapped around the finger of an unidentified man. Alfred sees Arthur’s face turn white at the sight of it and he can guess well enough what it means. So much for eyes inside of Clubs. Guilt stings his heart. It was his idea that sent the poor bastard in there; can he hope whomever it was is alive at least? 

“Throw down the fetters of your archaic monarchy and turn your eyes to the needs of the common man. Forgo decadence, favor change. Forgo tradition for the glory of freedom, for equality under the eyes of Time.”

Alfred has always believed in the Parliament. Before the war, in the arrogance of youth he could not have imagined that he should not have a choice in the way his life would be. Of course he should have a say in his nation’s ways. Shouldn’t everyone? They were all people of Spades, right?

Kings are fallible. Queens can make mistakes. Jacks are merely human. Though the heart and soul of the nation guides them, they are not without their flaws. 

Now, tempered by experience, he recognizes more fully how simple his belief once was. Time has only deepened his faith in democracy in any form. 

Kings, Queens, titles of a bygone age. They’re the most powerful pieces in the deck, the greatest defenders their nation has, but that doesn’t grant them the right to rule.

Only the Will of the people can do that, and the Will of the people desires a say. 

So be it. 

The words of Clubs’ ambassador ring in Alfred’s head, a dissonant cord against the chime of his belief. It isn’t the sentiment. Freedom, change, equality. It isn’t even the sting against his position. 

There is an inescapable sense of threat in those words. They make his soldier’s heart tense. Throw down your monarch.

Or what?

Alfred wonders, and watches, and considers asking Arthur or Yao what they think. He hesitates. 

Clubs is changing. For better or for worse, who can say? Perhaps he is worrying for nothing. 

Ambassador Laurinaitis is a blank slate in the face of his opened gift. Some of the fervor has gone out of his eyes. Alfred senses he is holding back something, but he doesn’t speak his mind. Rather, with hesitance in his voice he maintains his rhetoric. “It’s for the best,” he says as he leaves them. “The old ways don’t serve the people.” 

Alfred sees Arthur’s eyes meet Yao’s and the darkest, deepest flicker of a nightmare clenches his heart. 

He knows that look. Time, he’s seen it too many times: the eyes of commanders resigned to the next engagement, ready to plan the next order they must give him, one that will surely end in the deaths of his men.

Maybe in his as well. 

Helpless, Alfred watches the Ambassador take his leave, his fingernails digging crescents into his palm. He feels like that Sargent again, just one more cog in the machine waiting for commands, even though he’s King he finds himself helpless to say anything. 

“If we send a message then maybe—”

Arthur just confirms his helplessness with a dower, pitying shake of his head. “When we have a plan, we’ll tell you.” 

Alfred bites back the bitter truth in his Queen’s voice: he doesn’t have the strength or the will to do this, and they know that. Even if they don’t know the whole truth. 

He doesn’t notice the soft glance Yao lays upon him, nor the subtle twist of his Jack’s fingers. How can he?

There’s nothing he can do.


	19. The Curse of Loyalty

Toris Laurinaitis, Ambassador to Spades and Knight of Clubs, leaves Spades’ Court to their decision and contemplates his own disloyal thoughts. At first he wonders whether it was his King’s choice to send Spades such a poorly thought out gift. Clubs means to spread their influence, to release the world from the absolute grip of Time’s courts, but to antagonize the only nation with any reasonable standing military left to its name….

To antagonize a nation that was so recently an ally….

It can’t have been King Braginsky’s idea. It isn’t that Toris wouldn’t put such an action past him, but his King is bound by the Will of the People. He would do nothing without their consent, much less set the stage for a new war. This letter, this ultimatum he has delivered, is on the behalf of someone else. 

His Queen? No. The nation’s Mind is not her own. 

His Jack? No. Toris has spent quite a bit of time away from home, but he cannot remember Jack Edelstein having much of a will for anything much less these sorts of games. 

Uncomfortably Toris realizes that he might be the one the People choose to play their games through. The Court of Clubs have been relegated to defenders. Powerful soldiers to be dispatched at the People’s whim. They have no power anymore.

They shouldn’t have; mortal power and prestige only corrupts. They are the force of Time itself and should not be distracted with such petty details. Moreover they were meant, always, to serve the people. Not the other way around.

Not the way it has been for hundreds of years. It’s time for a change. 

So why is it that a single bleeding finger in a box, a warning to Spades who still allows its court such positions of power, can make Toris cringe inside?

He believes in Clubs, doesn’t he? They were right to over throw their mad King, right to recreate the world to serve everyone…

Right?

Distracted, lost in his own head, Toris doesn’t notice the blond head of hair moving towards him. “Hey, watch out!” He knocks shoulders against that passer-by anyway, stumbles, and turns to apologize.

“Toris?” Toris realizes the voice sounds familiar. “Hey Toris… are you okay?”

Feliks Lukasieqicz is an old friend, one that Toris has not seen in more than a year. Here in the surprising location that is the stately halls of Spades’ manor, he brushes blond hair from his eyes and grins. Sheepishly, Toris thinks, lost for what to say to him.

Time, but he hasn’t seen Feliks since the war. 

“Hey, say something.” Feliks flushes. His grin turns awkward. 

And then Toris sweeps in to hug his dear friend tight. “Feliks, you’re alive! You didn’t tell me—where have you been?”

There are so few Knights of the old guard left that Toris never imagined he’d find his friend again, let alone alive and well and roaming the halls of Spades’ manor as if he belongs there. Feliks whoops, holds him close and spins, laughing. They part; Feliks breaks into a rapid chatter, quickly explaining the nature of his fate and presence. “Got caught on the wrong side of the border after the war. Couldn’t get back so I stuck around and they gave me a job even though I’m from Clubs. Toris, what are you doing here?”

“Our people appointed me Ambassador to Spades after our new King was discovered.” Though Toris hardly could have imagined what it has and might yet come to mean. 

“Oh yeah, caught a glimpse of him at the reception. Kinda scary looking isn’t he?”

Toris purses his lips, “He’s loyal to the people of Clubs, Feliks. He wouldn’t do anything not in our interest.” 

“Loyal to the people of Clubs hmmm?” Feliks hums.

“Feliks,” Toris admonishes him. It’s a familiar tone on his lips, though perhaps with his nerves abuzz Toris is a bit harsher than he usually is. “Why haven’t you come home?”

Feliks shrugs. “Don’t think they really need me anymore there.” There is something he isn’t saying. Time, but Toris’ heart stutters in his chest. Don’t need… a loyal Knight chosen by Time? How could they not? Even if Feliks was appointed by the old King he still has all the strength and long life of a Knight of Clubs. He’s still….

…valuable.

…vulnerable. 

…here. Why?

With an unsteady weight upon his heart, Toris offers, “Our people need their Knights. Our King needs you. Why haven’t you come home?” 

Feliks laugh a mocking laugh. “I’ve never even met our King. Last time I tried to enter Clubs they threatened to kill me for being one of my King’s Knights.”

My King, as if King Braginsky isn’t. “But you’ve been in Spades this long, surely if you brought them something they could use, some information, then maybe they’d—”

“Information? Like spying on Spades?” Feliks scoffs. The look he gives Toris is pure disapproval. “Toris these people helped me when I was cut off. Gave me a place to live, to work; they even got me into the kind of job I actually like, even if it means dealing with their fussy-britches Queen when he’s in a mood now and then. And their Jack never lets me make anything for him. Too stuck on his old-world garb, and I’ve never even seen the King for more than five minutes. He’s always sending his brother in instead, but it’s a good place. These are good people. Why would I trade that for a Court that threatened my life just for trying to go home?”

“You’re a Knight of Clubs, Feliks,” Toris reminds him, feeling a stabbing pain in his skull that he is sure is the result of frustration. “You have obligations to the Court of Clubs. You’ve sworn oaths. You’ve been chosen by Time. You can’t just walk away.”

“If I could, I’m not so sure right now that I wouldn’t.” 

Toris sucks in a breath. The Feliks he knows is ever straight-forward, blunt, sometimes careless. He can’t take those words seriously; they mean treason. Even despite Feliks’ words Toris can’t bring himself to brand his once-friend a traitor. 

“Toris, even you can see it can’t you? Something’s wrong in Clubs. Maybe our old King wasn’t playing with a full deck, but I’ve heard things about these new people, the ones behind our new King. Can you say they’re any saner?”

Toris doesn’t know what to say. He shakes his head, denial a cold pit in his stomach. “Just think about it Feliks,” he insists. “For me.” He smiles, gently. “I miss you, my old friend.”

Feliks pushes his hair behind his ear and reaches for Toris, pulling him into a familiar, and desperately missed hug. “I miss you too.” He pulls away too quickly, leaving Toris cold without him. 

“Oh, excuse me!”

Startled, Toris turns to find himself facing a young man he immediately mistakes for Spades’ King. Upon a second, closer glance this young man’s hair is longer. His eyes are shaded a cool lavender rather than the Kings’ fiercer Spade-blue, and though he is tall he holds himself as if he is trying to shrink away. 

Feliks greets the young man with a tense smile and a careful glance in Toris’ direction that immediately draws attention. Feliks has never been a subtle man. “Mr. Williams,” Feliks coos, “did you need me for something?” There is a warning in his voice that Toris recognizes simply because he knows Feliks well enough to recognize it. 

“Oh, no I was just passing by. Feliks, didn’t I ask you to call me Matthew?” Matthew seems nervous. “Sorry.” His apology slides off his tongue. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.” And then he’s gone again, hurrying down the hall as if he believes his presence an invasion. 

“That was…”

“Oh, no one important.” Feliks is an incredibly terrible liar. He knows it too; Toris reads the warning in his expression: don’t you dare, Toris. Don’t you event think about it.

That warning is what tips Toris onto the most logical guess as to Matthew’s identity. Swallowing, he bids Feliks farewell with the hope of speaking to him again now that he knows Feliks is here, and safe, and happy. Time what Toris wouldn’t give for Feliks to be happy and at his side again. It’s been so long that meeting Feliks again feels as if he has healed a scar on his heart that he didn’t realize was weeping. Now, though, Toris leaves with a very special secret that stutters the beat of his heart and tears his loyalties in two.

He is nearly positive he has just accidently met the Ace of Spades. The best friend he has ever had has warned him to leave that secret be. 

Toris is a loyal Knight of Clubs, and he has no idea what he should do.


	20. An Alliance of Impotence

The Ambassador’s ultimatum is not the last they hear of Clubs. Arthur spins his pen over his fingers, frustrated as he sifts through page after page. Some of what he has are letters, messages he’s received from Clubs refugees who aren’t so willing to be beckoned home.

Who aren’t so willing to blindly accept Arthur’s words, just for the chance to go home. Clubs' refugees are a careful lot, slow to trust and slower to answer for their mistrust. It was Gilbert’s explanation that finally solved the mind-numbing puzzle that was their closed mouths. Their King gone mad, executing dissenters, no way to be sure he wasn’t still trying to find them.

Of course they wouldn’t trust Arthur or his people. For all they knew he would send them back to the slaughter. 

Arthur wishes they’d talked. Maybe then he could have done something about this mess before the threats began. Before Clubs regained enough of its strength to start turning outward once more. 

Some of them may be more willing to return home than Arthur has seen. He will have to keep a careful eye out; no telling if beneath the honesty of nine, one more will be willing to betray their sanctuary for a ticket home. 

Frustration ultimately leads Arthur to consider his other options. It is clear enough that Clubs is building their strength. It is equally clear that they intend to impress their philosophy on other nations and are more than willing to use threats. Until Arthur can arrange a clear picture of exactly what means Clubs has to back up their threats, contingencies must be planned.

He has few choices. Diamonds is one of them. 

At first Arthur contacts the Court of Diamonds solely for the sake of learning whether they have received similar threats. The response he receives from Queen Vogel is unfailingly polite, and written with a deftness of hand that makes him jealous. His initial assessment of her appears accurate: she is an extremely well educated woman. 

She also offers him nothing but platitudes.

Thus, Arthur turns to his second option: a personal letter to Diamonds’ King. While it galls his sense of propriety to use his personal relationship with Francis for political reasons, the threat Clubs may pose encourages him. Francis does him the courtesy of arranging a meeting between them at a private club along the Indel River, the dividing line between Diamond’s territory and Spades’. 

There was a time when this river’s valley was all but barren of life. Arthur has read its story in books so ancient their pages threaten to crumble, in alphabets all but forgotten by modern men. The flowing script common to the ancient peoples of this region is now a remembered only by magicians and dedicated historians. Once this river fed the most ancient of civilizations. The first city builders, or one of the first. Then the climate dried and their people were forced into the lawless jungle south, where pockets of vegetation overgrow glassy pits and the remnants of the steel cities from before Time. The river became an obstacle only, crossed time and time again by ancient tradespeople and conquerors. 

Now the rains have returned and the valley is green again. The club Francis has deigned to meet Arthur in is built of stone and iron and glass. The secrets of those twisted steel cities are no longer lost; they has been reclaimed through science and progress, but they are rarely used for building.

Every kingdom houses their own twisted steel tombs. Their own glass-cratered crematoriums. Their own memorials from the Time before Time. Building castles of steel seems superstitiously unsafe given the circumstances.

Francis stands to pull Arthur’s chair out for him. The room they meet in is private, overlooking the green river from an open balcony. A clothed table sits between them; Francis pours Arthur a glass of wine. Though it isn’t Arthur’s preferred drink, Francis’ taste is historically impeccable. Arthur allows his courtly gestures because he knows the importance Francis places on hospitality and comfort. He is here to deal today, not to antagonize his sometimes enemy. 

“I assume you understood Elise’s message.”

Francis quirks his full lips in a smug little smile, which Arthur chooses to ignore with some difficulty. “Of course. The situation merits another attempt.”

“Arthur, Diamonds is in no position to offer aid to anyone. Our mines are still reopening. We have half of the workforce necessary for them. Our most productive farms burned in the war. Even if we were to agree to an alliance I fear it would only lead them to look more seriously at us. We could not afford to send you aid if they attacked. If they chose to attack us as well because of our alliance, then we will fall.”

Francis is King of Diamonds. He cannot allow his nation to fall. 

And Time, Arthur knows what Francis is saying is true. He knows how Diamonds has fared. Hearts’ brief occupation of their lands left them destitute. As much as he wishes he could accuse Francis of lying….

“If Clubs comes for us, who do you think they will turn on when we fall?” Threat, perhaps. Also truth. “Diamonds is far closer to Clubs than Hearts is. They will go for Hearts as well, but not before you. Your resources are too valuable.”

And much more easily accessible than those buried beneath the frozen wasteland of Clubs’ north. 

Francis sips his wine. He gazes out at the river. “Do you think they knew their civilization would end, and there would be nothing they could do to stop it?”

Arthur momentarily forgets their location. Momentarily he is frustrated by Francis’ deflection.

Then he sees the green river and remembers the stories. Francis was the first to give him that book. That tale of ancient empires and their impossible battle against the very heart of nature herself. In the end, even Time bows to the enduring force of Life. Even as it whittles her away. They are both indomitable forces.

Far too powerful for mortals to combat. They are helpless before their might. 

Just as the people of this river valley once were. 

Just as Francis is to defend his broken country against the force of another nation. His people need their time to heal; that can be their only hope of salvation. 

“I cannot convince you, can I.” Arthur despairs, for he has no allies, and Clubs’ threats eat close to his heart. He fears his own nation, stronger but still rebuilding, can hold against Clubs no better than Diamonds can. He fears his own helplessness against that foe. 

“I am sorry Arthur.” Genuine remorse crinkles Francis’ smile. “I cannot offer you what I do not have to offer.”

Arthur’s heart feels betrayed. 

His head understands that his heart is a fool. If Spades faces Clubs, they will be on their own.


	21. Helpless

Alfred sketches plans in his office as the threats from Clubs grow. His plans are pointless. There is nothing he can effectively do to alleviate the growing concerns of his people or negotiate with their increasingly vocal rivals. He asks the Prime Minister what help he can be. Traditionally the King’s duties are domestic, and diplomacy falls under the nebulous mishmash of responsibilities that are his Queen’s.

Alfred asks the Prime Minister if he can speak to the people, if he can calm their fears. His Prime Minister gives him a smile that is condescending in its kindness and suggests he draft a letter to the people. A radio broadcast from their King might be some minimal help. 

Little help, Alfred feels his Prime Minister thinks. The letter itself sits unfinished on his desk with blots of ink staining the corners as he draws defense plans for the border. Clubs is building an army. Between their threats and the intelligence Alfred has managed to worm out of his closed-mouthed Queen, that is a certain fact. It is his Jacks duty to deal with military plans, not his. 

So what is Alfred supposed to do? He cannot sit here idly contemplating Clubs' threats. He’ll go mad if he does. 

He hides his plans whenever someone knocks on his office door beneath his half-written letters and thinks he might already be going a little mad. His people can feel the threat they are under. They’re hearing the rumors. They’re weighing the costs of another war at their doorstep.

They’re afraid. And Alfred feels he can do nothing to help them. 

There is only one person who doesn’t knock when he enters Alfred’s office. Matthew slips in while Alfred is staring at the paper in front of him, trying to decide how he can stretch the minimum number of Spades’ troops to defend the northern mountains and whether it is worth defending the salt flats just south of that. 

“Al, have you shown this to Yao?”

Alfred jumps.

Then he scrambles to hide his papers away on his desk, laughing, knowing he can’t hide anything from his brother but trying anyway. With years of practice under his belt, Matthew easily plucks two or three of his useless plans from the scatter of papers Alfred makes in his panic and looks them over as Alfred futilely grasps.

“Mattie give them back!” Matthew holds it just too high for him to reach unless he pushes himself over his desk, and that’s a little hard in his current position. When Matthew pulls farther away Alfred whines and tries to push himself up, only to knock his knees against the bottom of his desk and yelp. “Mattiiiiie.” 

Matthew looks at him sharply. Then he sighs and relents, stacking the papers back together in a neat pile before handing them back. “You haven’t, have you.”

Alfred scowls. “They’re just going to say it’s not my business. Not my job. What’s the point? They don’t mean anything anyway, just a way to keep my mind off of things.”

“Seems like your minds pretty on things.”

Alfred clenches his jaw. 

Walking around Alfred’s desk to stand beside him, Matthew’s gaze lingers briefly on the half-written letter Alfred can’t make peace with. His words of sympathy, of encouragement, feel dishonest in the wake of his own uncertainty. The stress of his helplessness makes Alfred feel the weight of every mark scribbled on that page. It makes every soothing word a knife in his gut. 

Matthew says nothing of it, not yet. Instead he leans a hip against Alfred’s desk and plucks Alfred’s glasses from his nose. He folds them up and sets them aside. “Stop trying to take on everything yourself,” he says, in that hushed, painful voice of his. That one he has when he just can’t take it anymore, when just how much strain Alfred’s secrets put upon him are revealed beneath his silence.

Guilt eats at Alfred’s heart. Mattie shouldn’t have to feel like that over him. 

But….

“I can’t, Mattie.” The blots next to those words stare at him accusingly. Mistakes. Just like him. Just like his appointment to his position. The words around those mistakes are weak platitudes that Alfred knows his people will see straight through. If the Court sees what he is….

Matthew sighs. “Want me to help you with it?”

Alfred doesn’t nod, doesn’t beg him do like he wants to in his heart. Instead he squeezes his eyes shut, a lump stuck in his throat. “Yeah.”


	22. Provocation

Matthew leaves his brother napping on the small couch in his office and goes to Yao. The words that were jumbled in his brother’s heart are clenched in his hand, every inked line a message screaming in secret for help he will not ask for. In every step Matthew feels the ache of Alfred’s secrets.

He cannot keep them any longer. The threat from Clubs grows. The people grow restless with it. 

Matthew feels the weight of the message in his pocket, the one he did not give his brother but knows Alfred will learn of soon.

“Surrender your archaic monarchy or face annihilation. You have twelve days.”

They are going to war. Clubs is closer than Alfred realizes, just at the edge of their doorstep. There is no more time for secrets. 

Matthew only prays Alfred will forgive him for this in time


	23. An Essential Honesty

“This can't go on.” It is Yao who at last settles their dispute. Or, forces them into a forum where they must confront their differences. They are seven days, four hours, and thirteen minutes from a war that will most likely devastate their still recovering nation. Clubs is strong. Not just unknown, they are strong. Their brief meeting with Clubs' Court leaves Arthur rattled and focused and at a loss, because while he is confident in his skills, the power he wields as Spades' Queen, Clubs' Queen is... different. 

He feels the cold absence of her power simmer beneath his skin. He feels the Mind of Clubs in her presence: stalwart, powerful, ready to conquer and rule. If it comes to a contest between them, Arthur doesn't know who will win. Elizaveta is all brawn, all force and power. He is deception and magic and mystery. It will come down to the nature of their match, not the potential of it. They can each beat the other under the right circumstances.

Clubs' King though—Arthur feels that strange, terrible, sensation he remembers from the day his last King stepped out into his final battle. That sense that he is about to lose something precious, something he cannot replace, to something all-consuming and impossible. 

Clubs' King is too powerful. Alfred cannot survive a conflict with him. Arthur isn't even sure Alfred understands the risks. He fights with Alfred over it one night. It escalates into screaming on both of their parts until Alfred shuts down, shuts his mouth, and leaves. He slams the door behind him so hard it cracks the frame. 

Were he in a more observant mood, Arthur would have noticed the force of that gesture and he would have paused. Such physical strength is not natural, and more importantly it is not the sort of thing that often comes to a King. To a Jack, yes, but not to a King. That the Will of the people would manifest physically, that Arthur has never personally seen. He knows from histories and records it is rare. 

It is something that only happens when the nation's Will is united in its purpose. Truly united. It is an emerging sign of the nascent power within that King leaking from his skin and into his physical person. But Arthur doesn't see that. All he sees is the anger, the tantrum, and that Alfred is still such a child. 

Far too weak to defeat a King as powerful as that of Clubs.

In the end it is that mindset in Arthur and that anger in Alfred that causes Yao to have enough of it. Yao is, by nature, a very calm person. It takes a great deal to rattle him. It takes two years, eight months, twenty seven days and four hours for him to finally lose his temper with the pair of them, but when he does that is the end of it. He says something quiet and sharp to Matthew, who disappears instantly without question (the pair of them are occasionally disturbingly in tune with each other), and then he grips Arthur's arm with strength born of his Jack status, so powerful Arthur knows he could not break it without hurting himself or his friend. 

Arthur resents it, snaps at Yao over it, but Yao marches him straight into the King's office without a word. Matthew has already corralled Alfred into one of the comfortable chairs within. Alfred is straight-backed, his fingers tapping at the chair's arm, and he looks as uncomfortable as Arthur feels. 

“This needs to end,” Yao tells them. Arthur knows what he means. This is one of those moments when the Mind and Body are so in tune that Arthur's understanding is impossible to ignore. Arthur thinks, looking at Alfred, at the way he turns away from them and sits stiff in his chair, that he understands just as well. 

“Clubs is at our doorstep,” Yao continues. “Alfred.” Alfred looks up at his Jack. His Spade-blue eyes are shadowed, flinty. He knows what is coming and he doesn't like it. Arthur doesn't blame him. That Yao has felt the need to drag them together like this, that isn't something Arthur finds promising. 

“I'll do what you need of me,” Alfred tells Yao. He remains defensive.

“And if what we need of you is your trust?”

Alfred pauses. He swallows, and his fingers tighten on the arm of his chair. Beside him Matthew rests a hand on his arm, and for the briefest of moments something passes between them, a denial on Alfred's part, and a push on Matthew's.

Arthur cannot fathom what Yao means. Certainly he and his King are distant, certainly they have troubles between them, and Arthur knows the boy doesn't entirely trust them. They don't know each other that well, that is only to be expected. It took years before Arthur was comfortable enough with his last King to trust him with his own secrets, and Arthur has enough that he believes his understanding is entirely valid. 

He doesn't expect Alfred to immediately dismiss the idea. No, not dismiss it, deny it entirely. “I trust you,” he tells Yao with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. “Course I do.” 

Yao frames Alfred's body with his arms. He uses his slight figure to loom over the boy and trap him in against that chair, and tells him, “Don't lie to me.” 

Alfred swallows. Arthur, much to his surprise, sees his fingers begin to tremble. It is Matthew who very gently asks Yao to step back, and Yao, to Arthur's further surprise, does almost immediately. “I am not here to hurt you Alfred,” Yao tells the boy. “But we cannot be the Court this kingdom needs with such distance between us. Clubs' threat looms upon us. They are united in a way we are not. We cannot hope to defend Spades if we are quarreling amongst ourselves.” 

“We aren't quarreling,” Arthur protests. “This is hardly that.” 

Yao looks at Arthur with such venom that for once Arthur shuts his mouth before he digs himself in deeper. 

“There's nothing to tell,” Alfred insists. “We just don't get along.”

“Alfred.” It is Matthew's soft voice that stops his brother, in the end. Alfred grips his hand desperately, as if trying to tell him no, this isn't what I want, please don't make me do this. “They're right, Alfred. Do you really think you can handle Ivan alone?”

“No.” It comes out like a curse, almost a sob, and it startles Arthur. 

“Alfred?”

Alfred's eyes meet his. Spade-blue shining with an unnatural light that coils dread in Arthur's gut. The Will and Mind are close, ever intertwined, even when they are distant from each other. Arthur reads the challenge and the desperate denial in Alfred's gaze within his own heart. No, deeper, within the power that has chosen him as Queen. 

“Fine.” 

Alfred pushes himself to his feet in that way he does, with his arms rather than his legs. “Fine.” He grips his belt viciously. Arthur sputters a protest, because what the hell does the boy think he's doing. He doesn't even quite notice that Yao has said nothing, and that Matthew doesn't seem in the least embarrassed. 

Arthur turns away when Alfred drops his trousers and isn't willing to look, because damn the boy's lack of propriety, until he hears Yao suck in a harsh, pained breath. 

Alfred says nothing. When Arthur dares give into his curiosity, his face is turned away. His arms are wrapped tight around his waist, and he's shaking. He can't look at them. 

His pants are dropped to his ankles. All he wears beneath them is a pair of tight briefs, and, well, the boy has an excellent figure. He's beautiful. 

His leg, just below the knee, is gone. What he stands on is not a leg, not miraculously healed flesh, but a mechanical mess of clockwork and wires and metal plating. The prosthetic, for that is what it must be, is intricately detailed. It's... Arthur's first thought is that it can't be real. Small mechanical toes clench against the ground where Alfred has kicked off his shoe. Wires that have replaced muscle tighten. Clockwork dials spin and chatter. How has Arthur not heard this creation at work before? How has he not noticed?

“It didn't heal.” Arthur has nothing more intelligent to say, so he states the obvious. 

Alfred squeezes his eyes shut. “Sorry.” His voice is sharp. “Guess I was never the King you thought I was.” 

Arthur stares. Something in his mind clicks.

Worse, something in his mind stops, goes cold, and the horror of what he is seeing finally settles upon him. Everything suddenly makes sense: how Alfred is often sitting, less so in the past year, but often at first. How he often breaks midway through his work and passes it off as laziness. How he uses his charm to get people to do things for him, because he's very literally too tired, in too much pain, to do it on his own without giving himself away. 

Without shaking as he does it and revealing the secret he has clearly taken great pains to hide. 

This explains why Matthew always comes to his brother's aid, sometimes with a hint of temper in him that Arthur never otherwise sees. He has never seen Matthew so angry as that time Arthur accidentally hurt Alfred by pushing him to hard.

By kneeling on his still wounded, still healing, bad leg, Arthur now realizes uncomfortably. It wasn't just a pinch, wasn't just Alfred being a baby about it, his leg must have still been healing then. 

The prosthetic must have been quite new. 

Arthur realizes that what he has been dealing with, this person he has been fighting with all this time is not in any way the spoiled, lazy child he thought Alfred was. Before him is not a child, despite his youth. This is a man. This is someone who has seen death and blood and survived it. This is a veteran who has come back from the brink, has lost a vital piece of himself and over the past two years has continued to put one foot in front of the other. Alfred has kept moving forward rather than fall into despair, and on top of that, has hidden a major injury from not just the Court but the entire nation for two years. 

It boggles Arthur's mind. 

For a moment he catches Yao's reaction. Their Jack is clearly horrified, and it's written so intensely in his face that Arthur knows Yao didn't actually know the full extent of Alfred's distance. Just that he was hiding something. Just that he didn't trust them. It makes Arthur feel marginally better; no not really. 

“I can't beat Ivan, not like this,” Alfred says quietly. His cheeks have gone pale. He's convulsively swallowing, filling the silence because he can't stand it. He laughs, and it physically hurts Arthur to hear it. “I'm just a weak, broken idiot. But I could feel it, you know. I could feel the nation calling me, ever since this mark appeared on my back.” Just between his shoulder-blades: a dark blue filigree spade framing a capital K. The letter is a reflection of Alfred's own handwriting: a sharp, hastily written character. Impatient, Arthur would call it. That was what he thought of Alfred when he first saw it. Impatient handwriting for a careless, impatient person. 

He's misjudged Alfred completely. 

That is the worst part of all of this. It is so painfully clear just how deep a disservice he's done his King. 

“Alfred.” Matthew takes his brother's hand, and Alfred clings to it like a life-line. His fingers are white in his brother's grip. “You're not weak.” 

No, Arthur thinks. A memory comes to him. That same memory: a dirt-streaked, bloody pair of boys on the battlefield, in the trenches. 

_“Sargent, where is your commander?” Arthur demands._

_One of the boys grins up at him with sharp blue eyes. “Majesty! Commander's dead. We've got eight more injured, they're coming down on us hard.”_

Artillery fires. Arthur ducks. “Sir!” Hands grab Arthur, throwing him into the mud and refuse. “Alfred get down!”

_“Hey hold still.” It's the first boy, the one who smiled. Alfred, Arthur remembers the name. He won't later. “Can't have our Queen get himself killed in a place like this.” He remembers seeing shrapnel tearing through that boy's uniform as he pushes Arthur to his feet and towards safety. “Get out of here. They need you.”_

The next time Arthur sees that boy it will be in a hospital, and his injuries won't be just that shrapnel. 

Arthur swallows. Involuntarily he steps towards that young man. Towards the boy he met in the trenches, who protected him from fire. Towards the young man he met in the hospital afterward, his eye covered in a patch and his leg gone and in so much pain. Towards the man he met in a gilded office with that arrogant grin on his lips and that challenging twinkle in his Spade-blue eyes. 

Briefly Arthur remembers that visceral first impression he had of Alfred then: power and arrogance enough to make this kingdom soar, or to ruin it. He doesn't see that here, not in the scared young man before him, but he sees what he has done. The pain he has caused Alfred.

Worse, he sees the pain Alfred has caused himself, hiding from them. He sees the fears in Alfred. 

How can a man who can't even walk on his own be strong enough to protect an entire nation?

“You already have protected this nation once,” he says. He doesn't even realize he's saying it aloud for a moment, but when he does he continues anyway. He coughs, and speaks louder, because he thinks he needs to say this, and he thinks Alfred needs to hear it. “You don't understand, do you? The King's power is not in his body. It doesn't matter who the King is, how physically fit or intelligent. What matters is the Will of the people. The Will of the people is strong. It was strong when it chose you and it is still united today. The nation chooses what it needs in a King. If it chose you, then you are strong enough.”

Alfred looks at him, but he doesn't look as if he believes it. Frustrated, Arthur does something he has never done in anyone's presence willingly. He does something that Yao forced him to do in the early days of their partnership, in much the same way he has backed Alfred into a corner today. Arthur loosens the cravat he wears around his neck and pulls it free. With shaking hands he unbuttons the high collar and pulls it aside.

He never does this, because it isn't fitting. It isn't right to show this scar, and it isn't anyone's damn business to see it. But he reveals it because he thinks Alfred needs to see it. There needs to be an understanding between them, and this is the surest way Arthur knows to prove to his King that he means what he says. 

The skin near the base of his throat is unnaturally smooth and a little shiny. It has the texture of old scar tissue, and though it has faded over the years it is still obvious enough to be both an embarrassment and easy enough to see. 

Alfred considers him quietly. Uncomfortable as it is to have Alfred looking at that scar, assessing it, realizing what it means, Arthur resists the urge to sputter at him. He does not manage to resist the urge to demand, “Say something.” 

“You were a thief?”

“Pirate.” Arthur rubs his throat. Instinctively he pulls his collar closed. When Alfred doesn't protest he does up the buttons and pulls his cravat back around his neck, retying it with experienced movements. “My mark appeared on what was supposed to be my execution day. It was a good thing they thought to strip me of anything they thought unnecessary. They found their own Queen dangling from that rope, and they might have just let me hang.”

“You were a pirate.” 

Arthur snorts. Watching him warily, Alfred moves, finally, and leans down to pull his trousers up. His hands are still shaking a little as he does up the buttons and buckles his belt. Arthur snipes at him, “At least you had some sort of honorable position before you wound up here.”

Alfred stops. They stare at each other, Alfred's hands on his belt, Arthur's hands on his cravat. It's a tense moment; neither of them seem inclined to move.

And then Alfred honestly, genuinely, laughs. 

The tension breaks with his laugh. Arthur realizes it might be the first time he's heard Alfred laugh without some sort of edge to it. It's joyful and carefree and wonderful, really, because it feels as if the sound alone has released every bad feeling, every terrible weight upon them. Matthew begins to chuckle as well, and Yao's smile turns up at the corners. His eyes twinkle with mirth. For the first time since they came together as Spades' Court, Arthur feels like they really and truly are as one. In Arthur's own laughter a very silly, and somewhat embarrassing thought occurs to him. 

With his face flushed, he says, “Couldn't you have just pulled your pant leg up?” It is a little perplexing how Alfred could have thought dropping his pants was the way to settle the troubles between them. In his defense, it worked, and it was what he needed to do, but it seems ridiculous in retrospect. Arthur finds himself embarrassed for him. 

Alfred's face goes as red as Arthur supposes his own is. “I can't get the cuff over the knee that way. They're too tight.” 

Oh. Well then. It doesn't help Arthur's embarrassment, but it's logical at least. Another problem puzzles him. He swallows it down, but it comes back up and he just can't resist asking. “I can understand how you could have hidden this from us, even from the household, but how on earth did you manage to hide something like this from your tailor?”

The King has a personal tailor, of course. Of course he does, he's the King, and Mr. Lukasieqicz works for all four members of the Court. Alfred was fitted for new suits and garments both before and after his coronation. Arthur made sure of it. They couldn't have their King not looking the part. Arthur made equally sure that the tailor did his job, and indeed Alfred's clothing fits perfectly. His tailor had to know, and yet he hadn't come to Arthur or Yao with such information. Considering Arthur has known Mr. Lukasieqicz for years and was the one to hire him after he fled Clubs in the confusion of war, he is certain the man would have said something. 

A sly twinkle glitters in Alfred's eye. He adjusts his collar and finishes tucking in his shirt. “Had Mattie do it.” Matthew hides a laugh behind his hand. Matthew is relaxed, finally, more so than Arthur has ever seen him relax. With the strain of hiding his brother's injury lifted, so has a great weight that Arthur didn't notice was resting on the poor boy's shoulders. “We're about the same size,” Alfred explains. “Just about everywhere. We've never had a problem sharing clothes. So he did any of the fittings for anything below the waist and I let them think I was just too lazy or too busy to do it myself.”

Let them think. Alfred has let them think a great deal about them. It hurts. Arthur hasn't given the boy, the man, the credit he deserves, and he realizes now that his lack of awareness was partially by design. Alfred is far cleverer than Arthur could have imagined, and having pulled off this deception for more than two years he has clearly proven himself more than he appeared to be. 

That look in Alfred's eyes, a little smug, a little wary, and laughing off the consequences, tugs at Arthur, makes him feel things about this young man he hasn't since....

Since they met. Since Arthur first observed those Spade-blue eyes staring him down like a challenge. He's been so sure he has been saddled with an idiot for a King, so disdainful of just about anything Alfred does that he has been able to deny that sharp attraction, that pull, as a fluke. A mere mistake of his imagination. Meaningless and foolish. 

Nothing. 

That feeling is still there. It bites down and tugs at Arthur's heart with a vicious pull. Something clicks between them. Alfred looks away, a smile on his lips, and nudges his brother, but his eyes shift back towards Arthur as he does so, watching. Not warily, not as if he's worried about what Arthur might do, but curiously. Curiously, as if he's waiting to see. 

Arthur suddenly understands. Approval. Alfred wants his approval. Maybe he always has. No, he has. He's hidden this secret because he feared being rejected for it. Because he feared the injuries to his body made him unworthy of the position he has been chosen for. The poor boy doesn't understand. 

“In Spades we have always believed, even in this age of logic and parliaments and change, that the magic which chooses the Court does so with a purpose.”

Yao's lips curve in a satisfied smile as Arthur speaks. “That magic chooses who it wills for a reason. Whoever is brought to the Court, King, Queen, or Jack, whoever they are, whatever their background, whatever strengths or weaknesses they have, they have something within them that this nation needs. They are the best person within our borders to defend and lead.” 

Arthur steps forward. Gently, he places a hand on Alfred's arm. Alfred doesn't flinch, but he doesn't quite look at Arthur either. “Trust that power, Alfred,” Arthur tells him. “When it chose you it knew of your injuries. It knew who you were, what you had done, what you had seen, what you had lost. You are the person the nation chose as King. Trust that the nation has made the correct choice.”

“I've never believed in all that.” Alfred laughs. It's pained, harsh, and holds only a hint of his former cheer, because this is prodding at wounds still too close to the surface and too deep for him to hide from them, not when they're raw and ripped open as they have been today. “Magic and divine right and something more. They've been saying it since the beginning. The nation is unified like it hasn't been in centuries. They're expecting a strong King. They should have a strong King. How can I be that for them if only part of me is left?”

Matthew grabs at his brother's hand and squeezes. Arthur considers his King. Yao, behind them, shifts, but it isn't an uncomfortable shift. He is watching, waiting, and, Arthur suspects, he knows something they don't. He always does. The instincts of the nation are a part of him, and he fulfills that particular aspect of a Jack in ways Arthur cannot even begin to understand. He stands back because somehow he knows he isn't the one Alfred needs approval from, nor is he the one from whom Alfred needs support. 

Arthur hasn't been paying attention. Somehow his King and his Jack have come to an impasse under his nose and he didn't see it. 

Making his decision, Arthur kneels at Alfred's feet. He does so formally on one knee, gently coaxing one of Alfred's hands into his. He presses a kiss to that hand as one did in the old days. It's an old-fashioned romantic gesture these days. In Arthur's childhood it would have been one of fealty as well. Alfred visibly flushes.

Arthur gazes up at him. “My King, you are strong,” he says. The fingers of his other hand brush against the fabric hiding the metal and wire of Alfred's prosthetic leg. “To make something like this, to hide it, to survive the pain and despair of your loss.” Arthur has seen men lose limbs, and seen them crumble and fall in the wake of that loss. “You are far stronger that you think.” 

“Mattie did most of the work,” Alfred admits quietly. “I just designed it. Couldn't build it, I was on too many painkillers.”

Arthur tightens his grip on Alfred's hand. “Give yourself credit,” he admonishes the boy. “I've never seen anything so complex.” 

“Had to be good enough no one would notice it wasn't real. The ones the doctors offered, they didn't move right.” 

“Alfred.” Arthur stands, still clutching Alfred's hand, and he pats the man's cheek. “You are more than strong enough to be Spades' King.”

Alfred still doesn't believe it. He holds his brother's hand like a life-line. Spades, Matthew. Matthew has known all along, hasn't he? He's helped his brother hide this. All those times Arthur thought Alfred didn't appreciate his brother, did him such a disservice by leaving him so much of his work, that was all entirely intentional, and entirely willing. That was Matthew doing what his brother couldn't, saving his brother when he was too tired, or hurting too much, or just couldn't keep up the act. Arthur is stunned by the amount of trust between them. 

Yao slides forward, graceful. “You knew, didn't you,” Alfred accuses him. 

Their Jack shrugs, his hands tucked into his sleeves. “I am the nation's Body. I tend to know when something ails my King or Queen.” 

Something flickers in Alfred's eyes. “But you never said anything. You never told anyone or confronted me about it until now. Why?”

“Because I hoped that with time you would come to trust us. It is unusual for the Court to be so separated in age and experience. Most often when a King abdicates, so does the rest of the Court. But all of us have lost our companions to violence, and neither Arthur nor myself have felt it time to step down ourselves. We've been here a long time. I understood that joining us might be difficult for you.” 

Yao smiles at Matthew. “And I knew that with such a capable Ace by your side that we would have time to allow our relationships to develop naturally. If not for Clubs, I would not have done this.” 

He would have kept his secrets, let Arthur think Alfred the fool even longer. Sometimes Arthur hates their Jack. 

Alfred though, he ducks his head and admits, “I'm glad you did.” He squeezes Arthur's hand. He's still holding Arthur's hand, which in itself is a miracle. Arthur, unthinking, squeezes back. When Alfred looks at him Arthur realizes what he has done and he looks away, embarrassed. He doesn't see Alfred's response: a soft, warm smile. 

“We have work to do,” Yao prompts them. “Clubs is building its armies. They will come for us, and perhaps the rest of the world as well. We must be together on this; we cannot stand up to the unified assault of their Court divided.”

“We won't be,” Alfred insists. He squeezes Arthur's hand again. This time, when Arthur looks, he catches a sharp, satisfied confidence in Alfred's eyes that sets him at ease. No, Arthur thinks, they won't be divided. Never again.


	24. Waiting Game

Within twenty four hours of Alfred revealing his condition to his court, Yao is gone. Alfred sits unendurably idle within the capital of Spades, his fingers itching to take up his rifle, to go to the front lines, to do something.

Spades’ Jack commands their armies. It falls to Yao to act as General, not Alfred, and that part Alfred is glad about. He doesn’t know the first thing about commanding the whole of an army, but he does know how to follow orders. He knows how to keep his men alive, how to push them on, how to defend his homeland.

That he cannot do that itches under his skin despite the terrible memories of a war too soon gone. He still wakes to nightmares of a battlefield barely more than two years past, still feels the phantom twitch of his now near-senseless leg. Doing nothing, staying behind, that is far worse than his nightmares. 

“You should rest.” Arthur has become surprisingly accommodating within only hours. Regardless of whether it is guilt that drives him or something else, Alfred appreciates the steaming cup of tea his Queen sets down on his desk. Arthur holds a second cup in his hands as he perches himself primly upon one of Alfred’s chairs. An all-to-knowing expression follows Alfred’s movements as Alfred lifts the tea to his lips.

Tea isn’t Alfred’s drink of choice, but this particular blend is excellent. More importantly, it sooths his nerves and drains his restless energy into a pool of warmth in his gut that he savors. “How do you stand it?”

“If Yao calls either of us to battle, then we have already lost too much.”

If the nation’s Jack, their body, their instinct, their general, requires the power of his nation’s Queen to fight, then the situation must be dire.

If he requires their King….

Alfred shudders. He remembers the outskirts of the battle his Queen fought against the Queen of Hearts in unreliably broken detail. In his memory it is a storm of magic, impossible pressure and power and panic as he pushes his men to safety. As he stumbles and falls and as mind-numbing pain makes a wreck of him. A King’s battle, he knows, would be worse. The outskirts of Hearts’ capital remain a barren crater today from one such battle. If Yao needs him then they have no other defense left.

“I have always found, in my time, that it requires a far greater force of will to remain behind waiting for an uncontrollable outcome than it is to force one self into disaster.”

Alfred sips his tea. “Doesn’t make it easier though.”

“No,” Arthur agrees. “It doesn’t.”

Alfred wonders, prays, that if Yao cannot use him in the battlefield, there is something else that he can do. Despite Arthur’s wisdom, Alfred knows the waiting will drive him mad.


	25. The Gathering Storm

“Take a platoon to the south ridge. Scouting reports only. I would assume they aren’t fools enough to try to cross the salt flats around us, but that isn’t a chance worth taking.” 

Yong Soo salutes with a wry grin and follows orders with a refreshing lack of joviality. Were the situation less serious, Yao might regret that his humor must be shelved for the moment; it means they are facing a threat too great for jokes. Yong Soo’s sense of humor can be trying at times, but it is a sign they have the luxury for it. 

He does not, because he cannot afford to. 

Clubs forces lay just out of range of their artillery. Yao has been watching their build up for days as he organizes his own troops for defense.

They are not moving, not yet, and their stillness rattles Yao’s old bones with anticipation, for their intentions are undeniably clear. There have been skirmishes between scouting parties but for now their adversaries remain unnervingly quiet. 

As if they are waiting for something. 

Yao hesitates to contemplate what.


	26. Uncut Strings of Marionettes

Arthur spends his time cataloging intelligence reports and wishing there was something he could give his King to do. He understands Alfred’s frustration at his helplessness as he is forced to rely on his people and his Court to fight his battles for him. Before, Arthur would not have considered that burden. Now he recognizes keenly that were he in the same position he might lose his mind. 

While Yao aligns their soldiers at the front, preparing for each direct assault on their sovereignty, Arthur handles the subtler challenges. The whispers in dark corners. The traitors in their midst. Clubs has been insular for a long time, but there are many refugees from the last war residing in Spades’ territory. Some naturally fall victim to the burden of loyalty to their own nation, regardless of how that nation may have abandoned them.

Arthur has identified several informants, in the government, amongst the citizenry. They are not his problem. In fact they are more help than hindrance, for they have no idea he knows of their betrayal. His operatives feed them lies for the ears of Clubs, and watch who they speak to for further hints of treachery. 

It is through those observations that Arthur notices a different sort of treacherous seed taking hold.

Ambassador Toris Laurinaitis is, for all Arthur knows, a loyal Knight of Clubs. That he is speaking with Clubs citizens living on Spades soil is not cause for alarm. Caution and observation, but not alarm. Arthur would expect nothing less of him. Even his brief meeting with the court tailor, Feliks Lukasiewicz, is understandable. Feliks may also be a Knight of Clubs, but he is far too honest a person for Arthur to be concerned about him stabbing Spades in the back. Just in case he does, Arthur has him under regular supervision anyway.

That Toris has been witnessed in libraries looking through old records Spades has on his home country, and speaking with several staunchly pro-monarchy Clubs leaders has Arthur a bit more concerned. Given Clubs’ rhetoric, he cannot imagine the ambassador’s superiors would take kindly to his recent actions. Certainly they would be concerned.

The ambassador’s actions seem out of place with the loyalty he has formerly displayed, and thus when Arthur learns that he has called a meeting of local Clubs leadership on the outskirts of a small town near the border, Arthur decides to act.

Because he knows his King is in need of a meaningful task, he invites Alfred along for the adventure. 

“This is a covert operation, my King,” Arthur does remind him. “It will require subtlety.”

Alfred grins. “I can handle that.” Arthur is somewhat skeptical, but his King has surprised him before. He is willing to take the chance. 

The meeting place is an old watchtower turned warehouse, a former frontier outpost that has fallen into disuse as newer buildings and homes have built up within the town just down the hill. The watchtower’s base is built of stone so ancient that Arthurs suspects it is from the Time before Time. The foundation is blackened and yet sturdy. The watchtower on top of it was crafted by frontiersmen who intended it to last. 

Several individuals are meeting here today. Arthur and Alfred are both exceptionally recognizable, and thus Arthur carefully concocts an illusion, a charm for each of them that will obscure their more noticeable features into a blander façade. Alfred’s golden hair is darkened to brown. His eyes are still blue, but paler and murkier. His handsome features have been blurred and stretched and made utterly forgettable. Arthur has done much the same to himself. 

He wears his illusion like a second skin, a spell he has used time and time again. Alfred’s is tied to a charm around his neck which, Time willing, will hold until their work is done. Arthur has cast spells on his former King before, but a King’s inherent power is difficult to hide from those who are touched by Time. With any luck, Ambassador Toris will be the only Knight present, and will be too distracted by the night’s proceedings to notice. 

If another member of Clubs’ court shows up though, that could cause trouble. 

Alfred and Arthur file in with the small crowd: working men and women of Clubs descent, mostly, called together to hear news of their homeland.

Due to the ambassador’s recent and erratic behavior, Arthur isn’t sure what to expect. This could be a rally to call more to Clubs’ cause, or a warning.

He does not expect Clubs’ Queen to take center stage. 

Elizaveta Hedervary stands tall amongst her countrymen. She is carrying the ancient relic of her station: the Queen’s Blade is poised firmly in front of her. She is dressed as a soldier: non-descript trousers and a dark blouse, with her hair tucked into her cap, and she holds herself as if she is patiently and carefully waiting for her prey to cross her path. 

Arthur shudders and slips close to his King. Of all the people who might catch on to their presence, Clubs’ Queen is by far the most dangerous. She is the most likely to sense Arthur’s magic and pinpoint them in the crowd. For a fraction of a second, her gaze sweeps over them, pausing briefly as she meets Arthur’s gaze.

And passes by. 

As if she has sensed nothing. 

But that… how could she sense nothing? Arthur tenses, awaiting a trap.

Alfred squeezes his arm. “I don’t think she can tell,” he whispers. Arthur looks at him, takes in Alfred’s narrow-eyed grimace. “Can’t you tell,” he asks. “She doesn’t feel right, not like you do.”

Arthur has taken Elizaveta’s hand once. He remembers the dull ache of her touch, as if his magic was reaching for hers and left helplessly alone. He takes a moment to reach for her now, prompted by his King’s words. 

She feels as a void, without even the tiniest pin-prick of magic in her. As if she has been sucked dry.

Or caged. Can they do that? Arthur wonders, shaken. Can a Queen be chosen without magic? Can the Will of the people suppress it with their disbelief? That is a terrifying thought. Perhaps not more so than the possibility of losing his mind to his nation’s Will, but equally disquieting.

Is there any hope for her, if the people’s Will recedes and allows her her own mind?

As she speaks to the crowd, Arthur realizes just how little of her own mind she must have. She speaks in platitudes and toneless rhetorical phrases that feel memorized and not genuine. There is no heart in her voice, and Arthur can sense the people responding to that. 

Clubs’ refugees are a wary bunch. They are warier now, and not swayed by their Queen’s words. 

At his Queen’s side, Ambassador Toris surveys the crowd. A twitch at the curve of his lip suggests he is biting it. 

Arthur watches his attention wander, and occasionally pause. Occasionally fixate on one or two individuals. Arthur watches subtle nods, and the tap of fingers against skin. Patterns. Messages. New ones. It seems Clubs has changed their sign codes again, which will mean he has to relearn them. 

The crowd begins to chatter as the Queen’s speech comes to an end. “Time curse me if I ever have you do something like that,” Alfred mutters under his breath where Arthur can hear. “How can she expect them to listen to her if she doesn’t believe in it?”

“She doesn’t have a choice but to believe in it,” Arthur answers quietly. “That isn’t really her; she is but a puppet of the people’s Will.”

Alfred shudders noticeably. “Like Kiku was?” He looks disgusted when Arthur confirms with a nod. “Did you hear what you need?”

Arthur isn’t sure, so he shakes his head and nods Alfred towards the front of the crowd, where the ambassador is speaking quietly with a couple individuals. He directs Alfred along the side of a pillar out of the way of their line of sight, where they might still listen. 

“Knight Toris.” 

“My Queen?” The ambassador drops to one knee as his Queen approaches him. Arthur can imagine that her green eyes might be lively, were she herself, but as she gazes at the ambassador, they are lifeless. 

“It seems clear to me that these defectors have no intention of redeeming themselves. Is the door properly locked?”

“As you requested, my Queen.” The ambassador’s gaze flickers. His face pales. Arthur’s throat tightens. Locked? He turns to Alfred and quickly signals for his King to check the nearest door. A terrifying thought rattles about his head, and he desperately hopes he is wrong. 

“We cannot afford for these traitors to betray us to their new masters. Summon those loyal to you; we’re leaving.” 

“My Queen, is this necess—”

“These are my orders, and the people’s Will, Toris.” Ice bleeds in those green eyes. “Quickly.”

Alfred returns tense. “They’re locked,” he whispers. “From the outside.” 

They have no time to plan their contingency. Clubs’ Queen turns her back to her Knight and brings herself back to center stage. Arthur feels an eerie pressure in the air; ticks and clacks ring in his ears, not like those of a clock. 

Like locks. Like latches being released. The Queen draws her sword. Arthur feels cogs lock into place. 

She draws a circle of sparks in the concrete as those cogs begin to spin in Arthur’s mind. Spin into flames. Grow from the flames into cyclones. He is stunned still at the sudden rush of heat and power, power locked away by an entire nation’s Will until it is ready to be used. 

That fire rushes forth, spilling into the room as Clubs’ refugees begin to scream and rush for the doors. Doors which are locked, trapping them within. The screams grow. Arthur, desperate, reaches for his magic, reciting the words of shields and seals he knows by heart. 

His King is faster. Pure Spade-blue power wraps around them, springing to life like an ocean torrent to hold back the flames. 

“King of Spades. This is unexpected.” Queen Hedervary stares at Alfred with the sharpness of an automaton locked on target. Arthur’s illusion has faded from his skin; of course it could not withstand a King’s power. For a moment Queen Hedervary looks at a loss; their presence is clearly unexpected, and she clearly lacks the capacity to form a new plan.

Arthur despairs wondering what brilliant mind must be lost beneath Clubs’ inescapable Will.

Queens are supposed to be mentally vibrant individuals; that is who and what they are. Her inability to summon a solution to her problem is more disturbing than her actions. 

“Ambassador, we are leaving.” The fire expands. Arthur summons his shields to protect another small group of refugees but Queen Hedervary doesn’t even turn. She must have sensed his presence, but she is called away. No doubt the Will of the people is beckoning her home. It’s for the best. This is the worst possible place for a Queen’s battle to break out. The refugees he and Alfred are protecting cannot survive that. 

“Alfred, can you get the doors open?” Arthur cries. Though the flames cannot reach them, the heat is growing unbearable. 

“On it!” It is intimidating to watch Alfred’s shields remain in place and as strong as ever as he turns away from them. He yells towards the doors, “Out of the way!” and summons a bolt of pure blue force that rockets towards the doors and blows them apart. People scream and scatter in its wake, but they respond quickly enough when Alfred calls them to run. Run into the free outdoors where the flames cannot reach them. 

As the last makes their way outside, Arthur turns to relax his own shields. The fire is spreading into the roof, and the outpost threatens to collapse around them. 

From nowhere, Ambassador Toris catches Arthur’s arm. Desperate he shouts over the roar words that must be treason to a loyal Knight of Clubs: “Queen Kirkland, Ivan is coming for your King’s heart.”

Then he releases Arthur and is lost to the flames. In his shock, Arthur hesitates in his own escape.

“Arthur!” A hand grabs Arthur. Spade-blue power rips a vacuum tear through heat and fire. Arthur regains his will at the sight and pull of his King’s power unleashed. He allows Alfred to pull him to safety. 

Toris.

The old watch tower burns as they flee, as the ambassador’s words run races through Arthur’s mind. Arthur prays that Toris’ Knight strength is enough to save him from that fiery hell behind. 

He and Alfred escape, fleeing for the safety of the front lines. 

“Alfred, head back to headquarters without me,” Arthur tells his King when they finally have the chance. Alfred grins, understanding.

Not entirely, but as Arthur needs him to. 

“I’ll fill Yao in. Don’t worry.” 

Arthur has every reason to worry. “I’ll return as soon as I can. There’s something I must do first.”

If by the Grace of Time he can make it fast enough.


	27. Shatter

Ten days, sixteen hours and thirty four minutes into the war with Clubs, Alfred finds his Queen on the shattered ballroom floor. Crystal and marble crumble to dust around him. Blood streaks the white tile. The tattered remains of a white scarf are clutched in Arthur's hands, and Arthur....

Alfred's throat closes. He swallows back the gagging sensation. He isn't sure his Queen is alive. 

Something cold and hard steels his heart. It's something like madness and clarity; he is so focused that all he can see is Arthur's broken body, the cracked glass of the Queen's Clock beside him, and the blood. 

Time, it's so much blood. 

As he kneels by his Queen's side he finds his hands too still. They should be shaking, he thinks distantly. Shaking with rage, with fear, with something. He can taste the acid power of a King in the air around him, feel the echoes of Ivan's strength in the broken fragments of Spades manor. 

How did he get so damned close?

The manor's grounds are swarming with Spades soldiers, with their Knights. They wrap a quick perimeter around the ballroom and someone calls for a medic. A medic. Hands running through his Queen's bloody hair, Alfred doesn't know if a medic is worth it. 

His Queen is alive. Barely. That clarity that has taken him, has wrapped into him and over him, tells him this. Somehow he just knows he would know if he'd lost one of the Court. Any one of the Court. If Spades Mind was ripped apart and broken he would know. But then, in his glass-sharp mind, he wonders why Ivan would have left Arthur alive? 

They weren't here, none of them. As Clubs' armies struck their border, their defenses were focused on their defense. Spades manor should have been protected, too far from the front lines to be in danger. Arthur wasn't even supposed to be here, so why was he? Why was Ivan? Why, thank Time, is Arthur still alive?

In the seconds and minutes that pass, Alfred kneels silently at his Queens side, his mind racing. He doesn't notice Aaray kneel next to him, nor Tai standing guard over them, nor Kyle or Olive searching the remains of the manor. His Knights should have been here, he thinks for a futile moment. That moment builds a helpless rage in his gut that cracks the clarity. Cracks the glass.

Aaray places a tanned hand on his arm and gently coaxes Alfred's fingers from Arthur's hair. His amber eyes are chill-terrified as he tells Alfred to breathe, listen to his voice, tries to steady him as other hands inspect Arthur's injuries.

Pull his bloody jacket away.

Spill his blood on the floor. 

The glass cracks. 

A horrified sob chokes Alfred. Aaray, brave man that he is, keeps his steady grip on Alfred's hands. Alfred can feel the terrible heat beneath his skin, growing, growing. Winding tight like the coil of a spring. A ticking sound in his head is all that he can hear. 

“Aaray he's going to lose it, get out of—”

“Alfred!”

Suddenly there are familiar arms around Alfred holding him tight. He can't see Arthur anymore, and for a moment Alfred panics. That ticking chimes and explodes, a wash of heat and fire and cold Spade-magic rips through him and out of him, spinning and spiraling and no, Time no, he can't hold it in—

It spins, sweeps over him, sweeps over them. Then it fades. 

A deep breath, a sigh of relief, is the first thing Alfred hears in the silence. “Alfred, can you hear me?”

Matthew.

Still stunned, still grasping for that second of blinding clarity, Alfred looks up into his brother's face.

There is blood on his brother's cheek, a nasty cut along his hair-line. His clothes are in tatters, but he looks... he looks....

Alive.

“What happened?” Alfred asks him. His throat feels like something crawled in it and died. 

Matthew looks at him with guilt, with a sorrow in his eyes that his brother shouldn't feel, ever. Not Matthew. He doesn't deserve this. “Arthur's spies, they told him Clubs was intending to find me. They sent Ivan to try and take me out. Thought that—” 

Alfred goes absolutely still and doesn't hear what Clubs supposedly thought. In his mind he replays the scene he entered upon: Arthur's bloodied body on the floor, the shattered ballroom around him, the blood. He replaces Arthur's face with Matthew's and it is then, finally, that he begins to shake. Seeing Arthur like that snapped his mind into a cold, terrifyingly clear rage that, he realizes, was just one wrong word away from him all but losing his mind. Seeing Matthew like that, even in his mind, rattles such a deep and precious part of his heart that he can feel the idea of it shaking him apart. Rage-coiled power doesn't build under his skin, instead he feels empty, helpless, worthless, like all he can feel is despair. 

“-fred, Alfred!” Matthew shakes him out of it. Thank Time, Matthew is there and safe and whole and can shake him out of it. 

“You're okay?” Alfred rasps. “Promise, you're okay?”

“Arthur locked me in the pantry.” Matthew utters a few more curses beneath his breath. “Knocked me out and locked the door and came up here to take on Ivan himself, the damned--” It's rare for his brother to curse so, and Alfred savors his frustration because it’s here and real and probably the exact same thing Alfred's going to be screaming at his idiot Queen once he wakes up. 

If he wakes up. 

Alfred is afraid to ask. He knows the answer in his heart, but he doesn't quite believe it, not seeing all the cursed blood. He is still afraid. He asks anyway, “Is he?”

“He's alive.” Matthew hugs him close. Alfred sags into his brother's embrace, grateful for it. “Aaray has him.”

“.... why can't I hear them?” Or anything, Alfred suddenly realizes. He can't hear anything other than his brother. 

“Shielding you,” Matthew admits. “You almost blew up the room. Again.”

“I did?” Alfred knows he did. He knows what that spiraling power was, all of his rage and fear and desperation built up and pushed just a hair too far so that he couldn't contain it anymore. Thank Time Matthew was here. What he could have done to his own Knights.... “Everyone's all right?” 

It feels as if the pressure in the room changes when Matthew drops his shield. An Ace's shield, built for this exact purpose, to contain his King, is something Alfred has never actually seen in action for real. Sure he and Matthew tested their powers out on each other when the war was starting up, just to make sure they knew what they were doing, and because Alfred couldn't bear the idea of practicing with Arthur or Yao. 

“They don't think you're weak Alfred,” Matthew reminded him then. “They know. They'll help you with this.”

“I need to do this on my own,” Alfred told him, hiding just those fears Matthew spoke. It was stupid, maybe, but still, he had to do that alone. With Matthew only. 

“We're okay Boss.” Kyle. Alfred turns to him, sees him rubbing sheepishly at the scar across his nose, and smiles, relief seeping through him. At least he didn't actually do anything monumentally stupid. 

(Stupidity doesn't come into it, but that was too frightening a concept to think further on.)

Aaray, behind them, sits up and wipes a hand across his forehead. It streaks blood over the Tilaka mark there, smearing the red into something that sobers Alfred, jars him back into the reality of where he is. “Is he—” 

“The Queen will live.” Ling kneels beside Alfred, her hands tucked into her wide sleeves, an unusually sober expression on her face. She glances at Aaray, who nods to her. “We have a safe house prepared. We should get moving.”

Alfred, grateful for the competence of his Knights, allows them to pull him, his brother, and his Queen away. He doesn't look back at the manor's destruction. He has only eyes forward. He has only thoughts, watching Kyle carry Arthur's bloodied body, of the next encounter, the next opportunity. Those thoughts simmer the same fire in his gut, the same heat and power, but it isn't a spring-coil ready to burst. This is slower, steadier: the pulse and rhythm of a clock ticking, waiting, watching, marking the moments until they next meet. 

Ivan did this. Ivan came here and tried to take his brother from him. Ivan came here and nearly has taken his Queen.

This cannot happen again. The next time they meet on the battlefield, Alfred vows, he is going to end this. No more Clubs spies in Spades territory, no more veiled threats, no more games. He will hunt down every last one of Ivan's little toys and break them. 

He is going to end this, one way or another. The next time he and Ivan meet, only one of them is going to walk away. 

There is one thought that fails to occur to him, as his anger builds: why, if Ivan meant to harm him, did he leave Arthur alive?


	28. In Fragments

“A King’s rage isn't something to take lightly.” Matthew wraps his hands around the steaming mug of tea Ling offers him and tries to hide his fears in a smile. His brother is sleeping, thank Time. Arthur is alive, if badly injured, and Matthew decides he might not yell quite so much at him for what he did later, just as long has he wakes up soon. 

He tries to bury his fears in Ling's tea, to pretend his hands aren't still shaking, and to pretend that he doesn't see echoes of flat, broken, Spade-blue eyes and a flash of power so sudden and hot and terrible that he's certain he should have burned alive.

An Ace is the nation's Heart. The King's Heart, their dearest person. 

An Ace is chosen to guard that Heart, and should it ever fail, should it ever darken or be corrupted, and Ace is chosen to—

Matthew closes his eyes and shudders. Ling's gentle hand rests on his shoulder. “He could have killed all of you, if I was a second slower,” he tells her. “Just one second. I'd only just broken the lock, just made it up there—”

“We're safe,” Ling assures him. She smiles, brushes her long dark hair back over her shoulder, and kneels by his side. Matthew looks at her. Sometimes he forgets how old she is. Her timeless smile, her strength, her smart mouth and quick temper are all dimmed here. But she tells him no lies, gentles nothing for him, and he appreciates that. “We should have known, seeing the Queen like that. Your brother doesn't have the best control over his power, and—”

“He's a lot more powerful than he thinks he is,” Matthew finishes for her. He curses his brother's foolishness in his head, for all he understands it. That damned self-pity, his inability to recognize his own strength, his inability to believe in it. He wasn't like that as a child. He was supposed to be the confident one, ready to march into war without a second thought, without a backwards glance, without fear. He wasn't supposed to be the one who held back, who didn't think he could make it. 

What was he supposed to do, Matthew wondered, if he had to be that half of them instead? 

(He remembers the war against Hearts, pulling his brother along the trenches, always at his back, always supporting him. Always pretending not to see his brother's hands shake, or hear the slips in his voice when he gave an order to charge, or feel that no, Alfred has never been the strong one, has he? He's just all that much better at pretending, or he was back then.)

“What if I have to do it, some day?” Matthew asks. He knows Ling understands him. He sees it in the pull of her lips, the softening of her eyes. Time, she looks like her brother Yao right there, in that moment. It's hard to remember sometimes that she's that old, more than a century, caught in the bonds of time like the rest of them by her Knighthood. 

It's hard to remember that she's seen this before: an Ace forced to do their duty, to dispose of their corrupted King. A Knight can only lose her status if she is killed, or summarily dismissed by the monarch who appointed her. Tense as their relationship is, Matthew knows her brother would only release her if she asked it of him. 

She doesn't answer him. Matthew thinks it’s because there's nothing she can really say. She doesn't like to speculate, and she doesn't like to lie. She won't lie to appease his fears. She refills and rewarms his tea and sits beside him, and just lets him think. 

Matthew wishes she wouldn't, because all he can think of is Arthur's bandaged body in that other room and the crazed look in his brother's eyes. He can't do anything but think of them, and it terrifies him.


	29. Spiral of Consequence

When Arthur wakes it is with a pounding head. It isn't just his head that pounds, but every inch of his body, it feels like. The parts he can't feel, they tingle with a terrifying numbness. His mind tingles with them, stretches, and pulls tight.

Well then, he did manage to wake up, did he? Funny that, he wasn't sure if he would. 

There is a momentary, terrifying recognition in that. He shouldn't have woken. He's reasonably sure that waking means he is some degree of alive, and that shouldn't have happened. That brings him to the terrifying realization that he isn't entirely ready to process.

Ivan let him live. 

_Let_ him live. That would be embarrassing, that he, Queen of Spades, would need someone to let him live, if not for the simple fact that he foolishly chose to face down one of the four people in this world who could reasonably obliterate him with a thought. Because of that, Arthur feels no shame in his defeat. 

But he does feel the terror. The shock. The impossibility of it, because he should not be alive. With luck he succeeded in his task and Matthew did indeed remain hidden from Ivan's relentless power, but he should not be here. He chose to sacrifice himself for that cause. He should not be here.

Ivan should have finished him when he had the chance. He didn't, and therefore the conclusion remains: Ivan let him live. 

That simple fact shakes something apart in Arthur's mind. In the shaking comes a horrible clarity, a sense of purpose, of Will that impresses itself upon his Mind. Ivan let him live. Ivan was so close, within Spades' heart, nearly destroyed Spades' Heart, or would have had Arthur not learned of his purpose in time.

That cannot happen again. 

Whatever it takes, even if it takes breaking his soul apart, facing that terrifying power again and again and again, ruining himself and purging every last flea and tick, every last sickening mite of Clubs' power from this realm and beyond, from the Heart of Clubs itself....

Arthur sucks in a deep, rattling breath. His eyes snap open. Were he capable of it he would have heaved himself up with the jolt and shock that assails him. 

His body is too weak. He can't do that much, but his mind clears very suddenly. That rage, the Will pressing upon him, withdraws enough for him to recognize what it is. It rattles him to his core.

Alfred knows. Alfred, somehow, is here and knows of Arthur's foolish choice. Arthur _feels_ that; there is no other reason why the nation's Will should be affecting him so. It is affecting him. He thanks Time that he is clear-headed enough to recognize it for what it is, because for the briefest of moments he didn't. It felt like his own mind, his own heart, echoing that desire to pick Clubs apart, to rip the welts and eyes and ears that Clubs has left within Spades out one by one. Without mercy. Without hesitation.

There it is again. Arthur breathes deep and forces it back. He knows where some of those stains are. He knows who some of them are, but it is because he knows who they are and where they are that he made it to Matthew in time. Because he knew who to watch, knew who the traitors were. He cannot afford to dispose of them, lest unknown elements take their place. That would not be wise. 

He wants to. The Will inside of him wants to. 

Time, it's intense. How easily could he be swept away by it?

Is this how Kiku felt as his King descended into madness?

That is the most terrifying thought of all. If there is one thing Arthur guards with all his might, deems precious above else, it is the independent and sovereign thought of his own mind. That it might be stolen from him because of magic and fate and another Will too strong for him to combat.... that terrifies him beyond reason.

If it is affecting him, then it is not only Alfred that knows and has a Will to purge Clubs' stain from the world, the people agree with him. That same thought burns in their Wills as well. 

Time, it hurts. 

“You're awake.” 

Arthur turns his head as he recognizes Aaray's voice. Aaray. He breathes relief into his shivering self. Dear Aaray, they've known each other a rather long time haven't they. 

There is something pitying in Aaray's eyes. He recognizes this, Arthur thinks. The fears that must be clearly written across Arthur's face, what he must be thinking. “There have been times I have envied your position,” he admits then and there, seemingly out of the blue. “Today is not one of them.”

“Matthew, is he—”

“Safe. Well. You gave him quite a blow to the head.” 

A normal human might have suffered severe injury from that, Arthur knows. Matthew, though, is an Ace. He will heal. Just, Arthur realizes, as he will. He's survived, that is what matters. So long as he is alive, this prickling half-numb ache he feels will fade. 

“Do you intend to explain to our King why you decided to act like such a fool?” 

Aaray has never had a problem being frank with Arthur. Sometimes (in private) Arthur appreciates it. Right now he feels ashamed, and it riles his temper. “What would you have had me do, let Ivan kill our Ace?”

Aaray does not argue with him. He doesn't have to; Arthur already knows how foolish he has been. All Aaray needs to do is look at him, and the argument that might have been is won. He leans back in his chair, his chin held high and proud like the prince he is. The grandson of one of Spades' former Kings, he and his family have historically served high positions in Spades. Several have held positions in the Court. Aaray has never been fond of the idea of a pirate becoming Queen, but he has similarly never been hostile about it. Just irritatingly superior on occasion. When status is not between them, they get along well enough. 

He has a remarkable way of keeping Arthur in line. Arthur does not like to admit that it is probably for the best, as few other Knights are so capable. 

Arthur slumps back against the bed, letting himself drown in the blankets. “Where is Alfred?”

“Outside.” I'm doing you a favor, not letting him in here just yet, Aaray doesn't say, but Arthur hears anyway. Arthur closes his eyes. “I will give you a few moments, but he must already realize you are awake.”

Other Kings would of their Queens. Arthur doesn't know if he and Alfred are so close yet. He hopes they aren't, but he isn't sure. 

“Let's get it over with then.” 

Their decision, in the end, is simple. Alfred comes in with that pitiful, horrible look on his face. He swears Ivan will pay for this. That Clubs will pay for this. That they're going to win this war no matter the cost. Arthur feels something in his heart burn and flash and fall into that incredible determination, that certainty. That faith. They are going to win this. Clubs needs to be eliminated. They're too much a threat to the world. 

And there is so much more Arthur can do now that the world thinks he is dead.

The reports come into their safe house in broken clusters. The parliament has called an emergency meeting. Generals have called more men to the borders, volunteers are lining up in the streets to go to war. Even so soon after the last war, even knowing full well what they face, they are coming. They're ready to fight for their nation.

They're ready to avenge their Queen. Arthur feels a little giddy hearing the news. That they're doing this because of him. He can't quite believe it. 

It's Alfred, that little bit of deadly brilliance inside of him, that suggests the ultimate turn: they think Arthur is dead. So let them. 

It's cruel and simple and perfect. Let them think their Queen is dead, murdered by Clubs' hand. In another circumstance Arthur would think it unlike him, but he is too caught in the strength of Alfred's Will to notice. He doesn't notice the way Matthew looks at his brother, swallows, and holds something undefinable inside of himself.

He doesn't notice the dark seed of that Will that is blossoming within his Mind as well. In the briefest moments when he first awoke he could see this madness for what it was. Now he can't. King and Queen, they are too closely intertwined for Arthur to resist. 

(He will resist. In his waking moments and just before he sleeps he will review what he has done, what he intends to do, and for the briefest of moments before full wakefulness or full sleep take him he will realize something is terribly wrong with him and he will try to fight it. He will fail, and for a moment he will feel the terror he has always felt, knowing this could be his fate. For a moment he will be utterly alone, helpless against the people's Will, and then he will forget. He will be what that Will has molded his Mind into, and he will not be able to see what he is becoming.)

It'll be better that way, Alfred insists. Arthur doesn't see the fear in his eyes, only the cunning ploy. He doesn't see the way Alfred swallows back apologies nor the spark behind that Will that is Alfred's alone. Arthur shouldn't be on the front lines. He's too weak. Queen or no, it will take him time to recover from his injuries. If the world thinks he's dead, no one will come for him again. No one will try to hurt him again. He'll be safe. 

But Arthur doesn't see that, because he is swept up in the Will: defeat Clubs. At all costs. And that is what he puts his mind to. He will do as his King wills and hunt down the traitors and spies and collaborators within Spades and clean the creeping taint of them from their kingdom. Alfred will stand toe-to-toe against Ivan and defeat him. There will be no mercy between them, only death and vengeance for what has happened. 

And Matthew, where neither see, will watch the growing darkness in his brother's heart and despair. He will see it build and grow and infect their nation slowly and be lost, hoping, praying to Time that he will not have to do what he sees he must: stop his brother before Spades loses their Heart to this madness and becomes something worse than Clubs already is. 

He will watch, he will despair, and he will take his fears to the one person he thinks will listen. The one person he thinks might understand. In the dead of the night, eighteen days, six hours and seven minutes after the war with Clubs begins, Matthew leaves. At midnight three days and ten hours after Arthur begins his arrests and Alfred begins to bring his power as King against Clubs army on the front lines, Matthew steals away into the forests, towards the distant shipyards, and makes for Hearts' border. He'll make it. He has to make it.

He has only one other choice, and he isn't yet ready to make it. Not without trying this one last thing first.


	30. Escalation

When a King steps onto the field of battle it is an escalation. There is a good reason that the Jacks of the nations control the military. In a time before Time when weapons of ash and fire tore apart the skies and war was left to the indescribable power of nature’s most devastating science, humanity learned one simple rule: in a war of men and arms, a war must remain of men and arms. The Jack is powerful, yes. A singularly powerful warrior. A one-man-battalion, fully capable of turning the tide of war. A Queen is powerful. They wield power of which others can only dream. Wield dreams themselves, even, and weave them in the corridors of their powerful minds.

But they are not Kings. Kings, in themselves, are not soldiers. They are not sorcerers. They are power. Pure, unrelenting, unapologetic power, and to wield them in battle is to wield an unstoppable force against a breakable human foe. 

It is, in many cases, unforgivable. 

Its consequence is terrible. 

One King can only be met by the force of another King. When Kings step onto the field of battle, it is inevitable that an opposing King will arrive to face them. There is no other way. Even the mad King of Hearts, in his war, did not step into battle until the end, until he was faced with no other choice at Spades' challenge. A war of Kings will break mountains and rend valleys apart. It is the last of last resorts in war. 

That Alfred steps onto the field of battle in the wake of his Queen's “death” is exactly the sort of reason for that last resort. 

Yao meets Alfred at the front, at the command center behind their lines, and he is unsurprised. He does not yet know that Arthur lives, nor has he heard much else from the capital. What he does know is that Alfred's coming was to be expected. Their passionate King could never sit by when one of his own has fallen, and more, such a direct attack on Spades' sovereignty and security cannot go unanswered. They cannot be allowed into Spades' heart so easily.

What he does not yet know or consider is that Alfred's show of force is more than retaliation. 

Their Queen is dead. 

Yao finds himself mourning for Arthur. They've never been close, no more than a life lived being one of so few immortals can make them. Arthur is young to Yao's eyes, and too young to have died so. 

Their King is younger, and Yao stands fearful of what his presence will mean. Alfred has challenged Ivan by arriving here today. This field will become a blackened hole in the ground should they clash. The army must prepare their retreat, lest they be caught in the crossfire, and it will be incredible. 

And perhaps, disastrous. Yao knows Alfred has been shaken by Ivan in the past, by his presence and his strength, and he fears that when they meet, Alfred's fears will be confirmed. 

But the people are with Alfred. Their Will shines in his Spade-blue eyes, radiates power that Yao suspects even their citizens can feel. A King foolish enough to step onto the field without the Will of the people at his back would face death at best, but that is not the case here. The nation mourns their Queen, and their Will for vengeance is strong. 

More likely, a cynical peace of Yao's heart believes, their two Kings will destroy each other in their clash. It would be a pity to lose another King so soon to the same fate his last suffered. 

When Yao meets Alfred on that battlefield, he expects tears. He expects rage. He expects the power of the people's Will to have taken control of his King entirely. 

He does not expect Alfred's wicked, secret smile.

“Arthur's alive.” 

Yao realizes exactly what his King has done, and he fears instead.


	31. A Desperate Gamble

The disquieting, empty presence of a Joker becomes an unexpected blessing to Matthew. He knows where he needs to go. There is only one person in the world he can think of who has experienced the overwhelming power of a nation’s Will overriding their own. Matthew must reach Hearts and win their Queen’s aid whatever the cost.

But Spades is at war and leaving the country covertly will be nearly impossible. Matthew recognizes that he needs help. 

There are two people he can think of who can cross any border without question. If anyone can secret him into Hearts, a Joker can. 

And Matthew’s connection to the Heart of Spades makes him uniquely capable of sensing the shattered remains of another such being. 

He follows that terrible emptiness. Before his instinct would warn him to flee from it. He fights that instinct for the sake of his brother and his mission. If he must face the terrible mirror of what he might become to save Alfred then so be it. 

“Hey.” That slick voice runs shivers down Matthew’s spine. “Felt you coming, but I never thought I’d find an Ace like you tracking us down on purpose.”

Matthew meets Gilbert’s blood-bright eyes. “I need your help.” 

A dark chuckle. Gilbert’s sharp grin is like a knife’s edge. He pats his companion’s cloaked shoulder. “What’cha think, Peter?”

Matthew’s predecessor, the former Ace of Spades, looks up, ancient wisdom and jaded humor in dark blue eyes. “Uncle Arthur’s in trouble right?”

He shrugs. For a moment Matthew fears he will refuse. A hint of kindness, of the bright boy Arthur spoke of, shows through. “What do you need?” 

Matthew breathes a sigh of relief and tells them his plan.


	32. At War

“Three more have been dealt with.” Arthur's letters are succinct. That is not something Alfred would have expected of his Queen before the war. Before he seemed the type to add pleasantry after flourish just to fill up the page with meaningless chatter, not because he was one to chatter meaninglessly himself, but because that was expected of a man of his station, and by Time he would fulfill that. 

His letters now are short, cryptic, and to the point. The dispatches come secretly. No one except Alfred, Yao and their Knights know Arthur is alive, and that is how it must remain. Kyle drifts a curious eye towards Alfred as he opens and reads the letter, parts his lips as if about to give into that curiosity and ask, but then closes them again.

“People been disappearing in the Parliament,” he says instead. It isn't the question Alfred expected him to ask. He doesn't yet realize that six months, twenty two days and four hours ago, before Clubs and the war, Kyle would have asked. That doesn’t yet concern him. 

What does concern him is this: Arthur is alive and well. He is working diligently for the protection of Spades. He is well enough to be working, and his Mind is crystal clear. So in sync with Alfred's Will that Alfred is certain whatever he is doing is exactly what he should be. 

“Disappearing?” He catches Kyle's statement with casual absence, more focused on the feel of rough paper beneath his fingers. Paper his Queen has touched and written upon. Proof he is alive and recovering. 

“Two clerks a few nights ago.” Kyle isn't one for precise time. Alfred doesn't usually mind, but it irritates his Court on occasion. Kyle rubs at the scar on his nose as he is wont to do when nervous. “Last night it was a minister. There was someone from the Guard's office last week.”

“Clubs is in our lands again.” Alfred folds the letter shut. He doesn't see the flash of concern in Kyle's eyes, nor the surprise he hides swiftly behind his nervous gesture.

Kyle is rarely nervous. He is brash and reckless and wild. Why would he be so now?

Why does Alfred not notice the change? 

“Not sure that's it Sir,” Kyle tells him. “One of those Clerks. He had a mark of distinction from the Hearts war. Something like that. He can't have been Clubs.”

“Clubs is taking ours again. Eating at us from our heart. We have to stop them.”

“Sir?” 

Alfred shakes his head, clears a film of crystalline fluid from his mind, and looks up at Kyle. He smiles. It's that smile he always uses when his leg hurts too much and he can't let anyone know. It's not his leg this time. Alfred isn't sure what hurts. He's not sure if anything does, but he smiles that way all the same. “We'll get them,” he assures Kyle. “They won't take what's ours again.”

Alfred gets his chance to prove that promise two days and fifteen minutes later. A wash of blinding ultraviolet power fills the battlefield, tossing soldiers like toys into the wind. It's instinct that has Alfred running for the command center's ridge. It's instinct that draws Spade-blue power from him to meet it, to defend his men below. 

He doesn't think for a second that the color of Ivan's power is wrong.

Clubs is green like their rolling hills, and white like their deep winter snows. Hearts is crimson and black, hearts-blood and infinite space. Diamonds is golden fields and sparkling crystal; wealth and prosperity. Spades is the sea and twilight; mystery and magic and power unrelenting. 

Ivan's black-edged magic meets against Alfred's hasty defense and breaks. A retreat is called; bodies are dragged from a battlefield now beyond that of mortal soldiers. As many as have survived the first onslaught flee. Crackling strikes of lightning picks at the flaws in that sea of blue power. They worm their way through, reaching for the soldiers below, but Alfred holds. The Will is strong and his own will is stronger, and he can. not. let. Ivan. hurt. them. 

Their first battle is beyond the comprehension of regular men. Mountains crumple in their wake. Streams bend. Grass burns to nothing. The bodies and blood of men beneath them are flakes of ash and dust in the cyclone they create. Even Alfred cannot entirely comprehend the scale and sheer devastation of his own power. Ivan's is entirely beyond him.

But he has people to protect, soldiers depending on him for their lives, and a righteous rage in his heart for what was done to his Queen. He stands firm. 

Stands to a stalemate. Until their power fades and it is just them, monsters in human form, the power of Time incarnate, standing upon a blackened field. 

Ivan is blank, serene smiles despite his injuries and the sharp tremor in his hands; signs of exhaustion Alfred is feeling just as clearly. 

“I did not expect you to hold,” he says. Alfred snarls at him. “Another time.”

He is gone in a flash of black light, his tattered white scarf fluttering after him.

Alfred stares after him, and makes them same promise. “Another time.”


	33. Whispers in Dark Corners

Feliks hurries through the capital underground. The tunnels have been shored up since the Hearts war. Electric lighting runs along the curved, concrete ceiling. Train tracks line the center; there were plans to repurpose the tunnels for a new-style underground streetcar but they only just beginning to take form when Clubs attacked. Bomb shelters have been refitted, and resupplied. The signs directing citizens to their closest available refuge are rehung. With luck Spades will not face the bombardment it did in the last war, but they can’t be sure. Worse, even in two years Feliks knows the rickety biplanes of the Hearts war have been improved upon. A threat to the capital city is as real as ever.

It isn’t refuge Feliks seeks in these tunnels. They’re a convenient way to move across the city if you know where you’re going and have a mind not to be stopped. Despite the Queen’s (former Queen’s) good will, enough Spades law enforcement knows his face these days that Feliks expects to be stopped or delayed in the streets. He is a Knight of Clubs after all, for all he is a remnant of a dead regime, and local law enforcement has been less than kind to his people lately.

It is his people he seeks. Emerging from the tunnels on 42nd street, Feliks takes a quick turn into a downtrodden alley, dodging clutter piled near the entrance and carefully avoiding the fetid pools of water that threaten to stain his boots. That he likes these boots aside, he doesn’t need questions upon his return to the Court staff’s bunker later. The lot of them moved down there after the palace was attacked, and they’ve been tetchy at the doors. 

He checks in on the families he knows. Slips them a little extra money for bread and tips on which ration stations aren’t checking refugee identifications as carefully. 

He listens to the whispers.

“Anton was arrested last week. Sir Lukasieqicz, have you heard anything? Can you check on him? They won’t tell us a thing!” 

“Larisa didn’t come home from work last night. She’s been hearing strange things, rumors about Clubs spies, please….”

“Cyryl is my only son Sir Knight. If you’ve heard anything….”

The rumors, the pleas for his help, they’re getting more frequent. More disturbing. Feliks knows many of these families. Most crossed the border during the war, fleeing famine and the wreck of a mad King. Most have no interest in returning; they hear tales from their families across the border and they hear the lies in their pretty words. 

Clubs is no paradise. Feliks knows that. Despite Toris’ urging; Time sometimes he wishes they never met again. That Toris never realized he was here. He hates the wild-eyed desperation in his friend’s eyes, the memorized falsehoods on his tongue, and that he knows Toris is smarter than this. 

Toris was always the smart one. Why can’t he see how Clubs is lying to him? 

Maybe he can see, and that just makes it worse. 

_“You could come home Feliks. You could be more than just a tailor. They’d welcome you back; you’re a Knight of Clubs!”_

_“Toris, I like being a tailor.” Feliks grins at his once friend, tries to make light of it. Fails. Time, doesn’t Toris see what’s happening to him?_

_“It wouldn’t take much. Just a little something. A little information even. You have to know the entire Court right? You work for them.”_

_Feliks doesn’t count himself a genius, but he knows what Toris is asking. He knows what it would mean to tell. “I’m a Knight of Clubs, but I’ve got a home here. You know I’m not going to tell you that.”_

Damn it all, but Toris already knows doesn’t he. Like he thought, Toris is the smart one, even with his head all turned around by nonsense. It’s not like Feliks hasn’t noticed.

That all these disappearances started with the death of Spades’ Queen.

That it wasn’t Spades’ Queen that Clubs was after, because of course it wasn’t. What court would send a King to kill a Queen? You don’t send a monster to kill a man. 

You send a monster to cut out another monster’s heart. 

Now Spades’ Queen is dead and Feliks’ people are going missing in the heart of Spades’ capital and it’s all he can do to keep up. Something is going wrong in Spades. The front lines are miles from the capital but too many people are disappearing here. Too many people are jumping at shadows. 

Feliks turns a corner, heading again for the capital’s shelter tunnels. He reaches the bottom of the stair before he realizes someone is following him. Nothing but the click of his own boots, the drip of water, and the satisfied hum of his stalker can be heard. 

The slow, bored tone of Spades’ Queen stops him in his tracks. “Hello Feliks.”


	34. Intervention

Alfred and Ivan meet thrice more on the battle field. Each contest blackens the earth, leaves it a barren glass wasteland between their borders. The rivers have become pot marked gullies, stinking with the shredded corpses of the dead. Battle lines drawn one day become rifts of boiling mud and filth. 

“Alfred rest, please. We can hold the line for now.” For now, until Ivan returns to this pitiless place. This forsaken field his men have grown to fear, for they see how little power they have in the face of monsters. Only the love of their nation, the devastating loss of their Queen, holds them to the line now. Yao has seen men flee in the night and he cannot bear to blame them.

How can he stop them when he feels their terror in his bones? 

“I have to defend them.”

There is nothing to defend, Yao despairs. This is no longer a war of men. Each clash of Kings breaks them little by little. Monsters have no place on a field of war.

Only in legends. Only to be slain by the worthy.

There are none worthy when their defender has become a monster himself.

But what choice does Yao have? He cannot hold Alfred back, not when Ivan monstrous power falls upon them. Not when Alfred is the only protection they have from it. Helpless in the face of it, Yao can only pray that his futile words will at last break the insatiable power of Spade’s Will. That the growing instinct in his heart, the creeping knowledge of a rot in the center of Spades’ soul, will become clear before—

Before he must tear it out himself or watch them all perish. 

Yao fingers the letters in is robes, the ones Alfred told him to burn. The ones he smiled over like the edge of a knife about to plummet into the heart of his darkest enemy and kissed like a lover desperate for their embrace. The ones he insisted prove they are carving every last bit of Clubs’ reach out of the heart of Spades. 

Arthur’s clipped messages sting Yao’s hands like hornets. Fearful whispers, rumors his men pass between them in the night, stab at his gut with an instinctive sense of wrong. 

Disappearances. Arrests. Whispers of secret prisons where the inmates scream and are silenced. 

This isn’t Spades. This isn’t the beautiful, mysterious nation he knows and loves.

And yet as Alfred smiles and promises to defend his men, his nation, his soul, he fears his King and his hidden Queen are ripping the very fabric of it apart. 

There is nothing he can do but hold the line. Hold back the might of Clubs in the face of monstrous odds. He despairs, because there is nothing he can do for the brilliant, beautiful boy his nation’s Will has devoured, nor the sharp-witted, gracious Queen he has come to cherish. 

He fingers his sword, his Jack’s relic, in the night and wonders, painfully, whether it is sharp enough to cut the heart out of his King before that heart is entirely gone. Eaten by the madness of Clubs and this impossible war. 

He has no answers, no wisdom to guide him, only despair and his orders. Defend. Defend what remains at all costs. 

“Sir Jack, someone to see you.”

The cloaked figures his sergeant leads into his command tent are unexpected. Yao rises to his feet, sheathes his sword and stands wary. Hidden though their faces are he has some suspicion as to who they might be. His instinct recognizes a familiar scent: the power of Spades beneath the skin of one of the two who greet him. 

He recognizes Matthew before he lifts the hood from his head, and he holds back the urge to wrap thankful arms around the boy and weep for joy. Instead he offers the young man a smile and clasps his hands. “Thank Time you’ve returned.” He can’t express enough how grateful he is. No expression of emotion could truly convey it. Their Ace has been missing since, well, honestly Yao hasn’t kept track. He could sense Matthew was safe and well but he hasn’t seen the boy since not long after Alfred stepped onto this battlefield. Now their King’s Heart has returned and for the first time in months Yao feels they may have a chance. 

Matthew’s companion is a great deal more surprising. Yao’s relationship with Honda Kiku has always been complicated. He remembers Kiku’s great grandfather, a good, loyal man and an esteemed Knight of the Court, from not long after he took his place as Spades’ Jack. He remembers Kiku’s father some fifty years ago being dismissed from the same position for crimes against the state.

Crimes that Kiku proved decades ago to be false accusations through the power granted to him as Hearts’ Queen. By then there was no resolution, for Kiku’s father was already dead of the ravages of mortal age and Time. If not for Kiku’s status as Queen of Hearts the matter may never have been resolved at all, but Kiku is unique as Queens go. While Arthur prefers alchemy, sorcery and linear, near-scientific structure in his spells, Kiku is a spiritualist. He connects with the will and heart of Time. He speaks to spirits who roam the land invisible to mortal eyes and hears the whispers of the dead. 

Yao has done a disservice to Kiku’s family in supporting the King who banished them from Spades. Kiku is slow to forgive. That he is here at all tells Yao that whatever Matthew has said or done to bring him here is far beyond their personal conflicts, and weighs heavier on Kiku’s heart than their mutual mistrust. 

“You’ve heard the rumors then.” Yao takes the time to sit them down. He brews them tea in his own style; the rules of hospitality do not disappear on the battlefield. In a way they are even more important. 

“I must speak to Arthur,” Kiku requests with near discourteous promptness. 

“Arthur is dead.” Yao maintains the fiction, even though Matthew knows he lies. That Arthur lives is Spades’ business, not that of a foreign Queen. 

“You know he is not.” 

“How do you know that our Queen lives?” The look Kiku gives Yao conveys his distaste for games eloquently.

“I owe Arthur a debt,” Kiku replies. “I would know if he were dead.” 

“Yao, what my brother and Arthur are doing. It needs to stop.” Matthew looks desperate. Worse, he looks terrified. Yao knows what he fears and there is no comfort he can give his Ace. How could he, when he knows the boy contemplates taking his own brother’s life as they sip their tea in this war-ravaged landscape?

“What he is doing—”

“Gilbert brought me to Hearts,” Matthew confesses. As if he has been holding everything back and simply can’t anymore. As if he expects to be sentenced as by judge, jury and executioner. “I didn’t know where else to go. I can feel it in his head Yao. It’s tearing him apart. He isn’t my brother anymore; what’s left is fading and all that’s going to be left is the mad Will of Spades. I can’t let it destroy him.” Or I might have to, he doesn’t say. 

Yao wonders abruptly how Gilbert Beilschmidt, former Ace of Clubs, would be able to contact Hearts’ Court so easily, but he is a Black Joker. There is very little Yao is willing to gamble on what powers he might retain. Black Jokers throughout history are little more than natural disasters when they finally lose their fragile wills to live. The devastation they can cause…. Yao counts them lucky thus far that Gilbert seems unusually mentally resilient for one of his kind and prays that might continue. 

“What do you intend to do?” Yao asks. 

“Stop them,” Kiku answers. Earnest, stubborn will lights his dark eyes. “Arthur would rather die than be a puppet to the Will of Spades. I will do as he did for me; stop him before he crosses the lines I did. It is the least I owe him.” 

“And our King?” For the briefest of moments, Yao dares to hope. 

“I know my brother’s still in there,” Matthew says, that same determination glowing in him. “I’ll do everything I can to save him.”

Silence greets them. Yao realizes that this pair expects him to try and stop them. To defend his King at all costs. He shakes his head, breathing a deep sigh of relief at the thought of having allies, finally, who understand the darkness they face. Yao cannot do this alone, but with another Queen and his Ace at his side, then perhaps….

Perhaps they can prevent the tragedy of Hearts from repeating itself so soon. 

“Then please.” Yao sits. “Tell me how I can help.”


	35. Insidious Whispers and a Cry for Help

Their first task is to find their King. The people’s Will is the root of the madness that has overtaken their companions, and thus it is their vessel that they must first confront. Confronting Alfred is a terrifying prospect. They have no idea how deep Spades’ Will runs in him, nor how he will react. At best he will listen.

At worst, Matthew will have to do his terrible duty, damning himself and their nation in the process. Yao hates to say it, but as dangerous as his King and Queen are, if they lose their King now there might not be a Spades to return to, even a corrupted one. The army of Clubs will run roughshod through their lines with their King at their head and there will be no one left to stop him.

No one except a Queen the world believes is dead, who is as mad as his King. 

Alfred is furious when they find him. His coat is scorched and stuck with burnt glass and ash. A mad fire lights his eyes. Blood drips from his fingertips; he wipes the bleeding gash on his face without a care and pays no mind to the blood he streaks across his cheek.

It is Matthew’s presence that first gets his attention. That wild madness, for the briefest moment, snaps sharp and then vanishes into desperate, fearful panic and joy.

“Mattie!” Alfred bounds towards them, grabbing his brother’s arms and shaking him. “What in Time are you doing here?”

Matthew’s hands immediately go to hover over Alfred’s injuries. His first instinct is to fuss and insist his brother be cared for, and he refuses to answer any of Alfred’s questions until that is done. At first Yao fears Alfred will resist his brother, or even lash out at him, but to Yao’s surprise Alfred allows it. 

Alfred lets Matthew patch his injuries with the fidgety acceptance of a child and does not say a word of protest. 

“The bond between them was forged in blood and war and pain,” Kiku says quietly as the look on, helpless to interfere. He mutters something to quiet for Yao to hear before he hopes aloud, “Perhaps it will prove stronger than Spades’ Will.”

“Alfred, read these for me.” Matthew hands Alfred a packet of letters as he cleans his brother’s injuries. 

Alfred flips through them, quickly and impatiently scanning their titles and then tossing them aside. “They’re just Artie’s letters. He’s fine. He can handle this. What are you so worked up about?”

“Read them again Alfred.” 

“I’ve read them before. I don’t need to—”

“Read them again.” 

“I know what they say.” 

“Alfred!” 

“Fine!”

Alfred leans over to snatch the papers up. He fingers pull the paper and crinkle it harshly. Yao wonders what Matthew’s plan is, what he is trying to accomplish here. 

“Did you even notice,” Matthew asks Alfred quietly, as Alfred tosses aside the last letter. “Did you notice that I’ve been gone for almost a month?”

Alfred shakes his head. “A month? But I saw you just—”

Alfred looks up. He freezes. 

Stares.

Rises to his feet.

Yao realizes suddenly that their King has not even noticed his presence, let alone Kiku’s. He sees, no, feels the flicker of disorientation, of fear in his King’s heart. He senses the moment that Alfred moves to stand and gather the immense and devastating power within him. His hand moves with the same instinct to the hilt of his sword, knowing as he reaches for it that even its blessed power cannot save him from the utter destruction of a King. 

“Alfred—”

“My King.” Yao takes a chance. He gambles on instinct. “We are in the midst of our army. I respectfully request you sheath your power.”

Alfred staggers. In the breath of an instant his entire body shudders and his hands reach for his face. Fingernails dig into his scalp, pulling at his hair. “Shit.” He curses. Curses again. “Shit, shit, Mattie! Mattie my head, what’s—” Alfred goes abruptly green in the face and spins on his heel, reaching blindly ahead. 

His brother is at his side with a bucket in hand, catching Alfred as he stumbles and holding him steady as he vomits in wet, hacking coughs.

“Mattie?” Alfred asks again weakly when he is finished. 

“I’m here Alfred. I’m here.” Matthew gently guides Alfred back to his seat. He looks up at Kiku, standing steady at Yao’s side and nods. Tension that Yao barely recognized in the face of his King’s chaotic actions recedes from Kiku’s stiff shoulders. Kiku moves forward before Yao can stop him, kneeling at Alfred’s side and taking Alfred’s hand in his. He removes an ink brush from his sleeve, a brush that should have no ink in it, but with the whisper of a word leaves artful trails of black upon the back of Alfred’s hand. The ink flashes an angry red, then violet, then glows a serene, Spade-blue before it fades into Alfred’s skin. 

“I believe he recognizes it now.” 

Alfred’s hands clench white-knuckled against his knees as he shivers uncontrollably. 

Instinct drives Yao to the side of the room, into the familiar motions of preparing his tea which he runs through mechanically as Alfred shakes behind him. 

Recognizes it. Time almighty. 

When Yao offers Alfred a steaming cup, Alfred meets his eyes in thanks. 

And Yao breathes a deep, desperate sigh of relief. 

The man staring back at him is no longer the Will-driven disaster who stormed the battlefields, or the cunning madman who played games with the very Mind and Heart of his beloved nation. Yao recognizes the boy within, his King within, and he is relieved. 

“What have I been doing?” Alfred demands to know. “Shit.” He winces, his entire body going rigid as some indescribable pain flows through him. “It’s still there. They’re so angry, I can feel it. It hurts—”

“Fight it Alfred.” Matthew grips his brother’s free hand tight. “Fight it. You’ve had worse than this.” 

Their intertwined hands tighten against Alfred’s bad knee. Alfred’s pained smile is echoed by his brother’s relieved one. “Yeah. Don’t worry Mattie, I’ve got this. I’ve got you right?”

“Always.”

Thank Time. 

Alfred turns his attention to Kiku for the first time. “Thank you. I guess you kind of know what it feels like, don’t you.” 

Kiku smiles bitterly. “Not as you feel it, no. I could not sympathize with your pain. The Will was never directly in my mind.” He sobers. “But I did once feel it as your Queen does now.” 

Alfred’s eyes go dangerously flinty and flat. He turns to Yao. “Where is he?” he demands. “What have I made him do?”

As much as Yao fears answering Alfred’s question, he is relieved that he has the opportunity to try.


	36. The Wrong I Have Done

Guilt is an emotion Alfred is familiar with. From childhood pranks, to his mother crying over his broken leg when he was a child, to the first death of a soldier under his command, Alfred has lived with some form of guilt for most of his life. For the most part he has weathered it, accepted it, and moved past it.

What he has done to his Queen in his madness swells an avalanche of guilt that he may never be able to accept. 

It doesn’t matter to him that the Will of the people is ultimately responsible. It doesn’t matter to him that his only failing was not being able to resist his own King’s nature. That failing, that weakness, has had consequences. Blood is on his hands; they’re red and stained with the deaths of innocent men and women who committed no crime but that of being suspected of disloyalty to a land that wasn’t even theirs. Alfred in his madness released upon them the most formidable mind in the kingdom with a will to track every last one of them down and end their lives. 

Thirty seven people are dead. Most are natives of Clubs who became refugees in Spades after the Hearts war. Five people are still in custody, missing so far as their families know, and in the hands of Alfred’s Queen. 

Alfred’s Queen, who has been driven mad by the Will of Spades. 

Worse. Who has been driven made because Alfred could not resist the pull of the Will of Spades.

He resists it now. It eats at his mind like an insect: constantly buzzing at his ear, chewing his flesh, stabbing at his eyes. It hurts more than he can describe. It waits like a predator stalking prey for a second’s weakness in him. A single moment of hesitation that will allow it to overtake him again. 

He can’t allow that. He can’t ever allow that. Now he understands why the King’s Ace exists. He understands why Time would create a power capable of deposing a King if there were such a need. If the Will of Spades sucks him under again Alfred fears his brother might have to do what he was chosen to. Alfred doesn’t think he could live with himself if he lets go again.

He has to find Arthur. 

Somewhere in the capital of Spades, his Queen is still trapped by Spades’ Will. Alfred has no idea how to break him from that. He knows his own resistance cannot hurt, that Arthur might not fall deeper into madness so long as he holds himself together, but there is no telling how the Will might affect the Mind of the nation outside of the King’s control. Even Kiku cannot tell him that. 

“I awoke after my King was dead, and after the Will of Hearts chose another. I cannot tell you how I might have been if my King had regained his sanity.” 

Regained his sanity. Alfred isn’t sure he has just yet. All he knows for sure right now is that he knows that Spades’ Will is driving him mad. He didn’t before. The first step to solving a problem is knowing you have one right? 

They can solve the rest of Alfred’s problems later. First, they have to find and save his Queen. 

They have few choices available to them. Ivan still stalks their border; Alfred remains the only power that can hold him back. Though the clash of men and artillery continues below, there is no telling when he will next take the field, and thus Alfred cannot easily leave. He cannot leave his countrymen to the slaughter knowing he is their only shield. 

“I wish I could say that Ivan will leave if you do,” Yao admits. “But I fear he is as captured by his nation’s Will as you were.” 

He won’t back away. Yao speculates, but Alfred knows. He has seen the madness in Ivan’s eyes, and now he recognizes the echo of it in his own soul. The Will of Spades has consumed him for one month, twenty-seven days, and six hours, but he knows in his heart that Ivan has lived with such madness for years. Perhaps since before Clubs’ mad King fell. Too long, certainly, to do anything but follow it. 

It didn’t hurt when he was lost to it, does Ivan recognize it enough for it to sting, or does he instead course its wave of euphoric certainty and promise? Its terrifying, unquestionable righteousness?

Someone needs to find and stop Arthur. Alfred desperately wants to, needs to, needs to do something to correct the harm he has caused to his people and his Queen, and he needs to do it with his own two hands. He needs to see and be certain that his Queen's Mind is clear of his madness himself; he cannot trust another to the task. Not now that he feels the madness he has infected Arthur with chewing the fringes of his mind to tatters. 

His brother comes to him in his indecision and offers him a solution.

“I’ll hold the border.” 

“Mattie you can’t—” Terror rips a hole in Alfred’s gut. Matthew. No, no he can’t… he shouldn’t have to… 

Matthew takes Alfred’s hand and smiles his gentle smile. “The only thing that can turn back a King’s power is an Ace’s. My shield against his strength. Time granted me the power to best you if I need to, so if you can hold him so can I right?”

 _I can barely hold him_ , Alfred thinks, fearing for his brother, knowing equally that he is right.

But Matthew shouldn’t have to clean up the mess Alfred has created here. That isn’t his—

“I’ve been cleaning up your messes since we were children,” Matthew reminds him. “Through laughter and pain, peace and war, from the very beginning.” Stubborn certainty flickers in his twilight eyes. “Find Arthur and make our nation right again. I will hold the line.”

Matthew has always been the stronger of them. Alfred once thought he should have been chosen King instead.

Now he understands why he was not. 

“Ivan almost killed you once. If he kills you this time, that’s it. I don’t think I can hold Spades’ Will back if you die.” 

“Brother.” Matthew’s hand grips tight. “I will hold the line.” 

Alfred believes him.


	37. Wrong World

The heart of Spades’ capital feels wrong. 

At the height of the last war, Alfred was at the front, or in a hospital bed, and thus he has no memory of the empty streets, of citizens hurrying to and fro from the safety of shelters for supplies. He never saw the boarded up windows and armed police at each corner. Now, as he and his small contingent of Knights hurry through the city, every faded mark of soot, every cracked foundation or pot-marked stone from the last war is highlighted by the absence of the city’s bustle. They bring to mind stark images of what will come should Clubs begin bombing the city again.

There is still so much damage; can they survive another such onslaught?

Alfred’s goal is easy enough. The Court’s bunker is their primary destination; with luck they will reach Xiao Chun and Tai who are stationed there without trouble, and they will know where to find Arthur. The complicated nature of their Queen’s fabricated death will make actually finding him difficult, but with any luck….

Alfred doesn’t have much else to go on but luck at this point.

“There!” Olive points towards a nearby shelter entrance that looks the same as every other. Number Twelve. No other marks distinguish it from the others, but of course the Court would favor Time’s sacred number. Kyle grins at his sibling and pulls them along at a rapid pace, his enthusiasm infectious in a way Alfred forgot under Spades’ influence. Perhaps if he remembered it he would have noticed his Knight’s wavering demeanor. Perhaps he could have….

He doesn’t have time for his guilt now. Now he needs to fix what he has wrecked. 

They are stopped at the bunker’s door. Recognizable though they are, they are still frisked carefully; when an enemy force contains an active Queen there is no telling what magic might be at play. They know far too little about Clubs’ Queen to predict her tactics. 

Come to think of it, Alfred hasn’t seen nor heard a whisper of Clubs’ Queen since before he….

“Oh thank Time!” Tai is there to greet them in moments. He looks frazzled, his dark hair falling in a mess about his face, stress wearing deep bruises beneath his eyes. He pulls them aside into a private chamber immediately and, well, at least he’s not the type to dissemble. “Where have you been?” He tugs his hand through his hair. “Arthur… the Queen, he’s…. Shit.” Behind him, Xiao Chun lays a warning hand on his cousin’s arm. Tension creeps between them as a look of horror crosses Tai’s face. As if he didn’t realize the implications of what he was saying. 

“I know.” Alfred feels his stomach drop. Feels sick knowing that three days ago if Tai had spoken to him like this he might have killed him. He can feel the Will of Spades screaming in his mind: _traitor, coward, how dare he question our Will!_

Reckless idiot, thank Time Alfred has it under control.

He does, right? 

“I need to find him,” Alfred tells them. He needs to stop this, and he needs them to trust that he is trying to.

“We don’t know where he goes,” Tai admits. “He’s got a base somewhere, somewhere he’s taking people too, but he’s never told us.” He doesn’t trust them. He sees enemies at every turn, even amongst their most loyal companions, their Knights who have been chosen to defend and execute their will. 

“I can lead you there.” Tai turns to his cousin in surprise, but Alfred feels a spark of relief in Xiao Chun’s confidence.

“You’re sure?”

“I thought it sensible to know our Queen’s movements.” 

“Shit, Xiao if he’d seen you following him right now he’d….”

Xiao Chun dismisses his cousin’s fears in favor of Alfred’s attention. “My King, you will not like what you see there.” 

Alfred swallows, knowing that truth too well. “Take me to him.” He cannot rest until this is finished.


	38. A Mad and Timeless Cage

Feliks wishes there were bars to his cage. 

In the damp chill of his cell, he can see nothing. Darkness, the intermittent drip of water from pipes, and the constant cold air being vented in are all he has known for… days? weeks? He doesn’t even know anymore. How could he? 

Sometimes he hears more. He hears doors clang, furious and muffled voices beyond the concrete, and then the drip, drip, drip again. Even his cell door has no windows; he can’t see or hear anything distinct. 

In some ways that might be better; he can’t hear screams. If he could he thinks he would go mad faster than he already is. Instead he waits in darkness without any idea of what to expect. He sleeps, he thinks, but he can’t really tell how long. There is no blanket, only a hard slab that feels wooden beneath him, so he doesn’t sleep well. Sometimes he thinks he hears scratches at the walls. Sees flashes of color and light in the darkness. 

Are those dreams? Is that him closing his eyes?

Does he have any hope of leaving this place? He’s a fool, he thinks. He knows he is, he always has, but Time Above.

The Queen of Spades has him locked in a cellar. Is he going to be fed to some monster? They do keep feeding him at least, through a slip in the door that lets in a blinding light when it opens. Are they fattening him up? 

He laughs. 

He hears a clank and a bang and a voice. 

He laughs harder. He thinks he’s going to die down here. 

_Hey Toris, maybe I should have listened to you after all._


	39. The Terrible Things I've Done

Xiao Chun leads them through the subway. 

Like the city above, Alfred has never seen it converted for wartime. There are no trains running, the tunnels are cold and hung with signs pointing to shelters. It’s well-lit enough for easy passage, but its stillness is unnerving. 

The door Xiao Chun brings them to is no more noticeable than any other. In fact, Alfred would have walked right past it. The sign above it reads 3rd Street Shelter, and it is locked. Shelter doors are not supposed to be locked; that is the first sign that something is strange about it. 

The second, is that Aaray opens the door when Xiao Chun knocks.

“Shouldn’t we break in quietly,” Kyle noisily whispers to Olive. They nudge his shoulder ungently as Aaray looks them over. His dark eyes settle on each of them with wordless judgement, with an air of confidence and superiority that reminds Alfred of his Platoon Commander looking for each hair and knot and seam out of place. Alfred hesitates to step forward because of it, even knowing he has to get passed that door. If Aaray is here, then so is Arthur. He doesn’t want to fight one of his own knights but if he has to… 

Anxiety twists a dark pit in his gut. What if he can’t do this? What if it’s already too late? What if….

“That would be unadvisable,” Aaray admonishes Kyle. “You know better than to cross your Queen’s wards uninvited.” 

Kyle tenses, his face paling. Wards? Alfred moves forward but Aaray holds his hand out to stop him. Looks him in the eye. “My King, even you should be wary.” 

“I have to see him Aaray.” 

“What is so important that you have abandoned the front to see him now?”

“I know what he’s doing, I need to—”

“You approved his actions.” Aaray’s voice sounds like a whip crack. Stabs like a needle. 

Alfred feels as if the wind has been knocked out of him, but he knows, he knows….

….he knows. Time he knows. 

Hollow, with the horrible dark chewing his thoughts, shredding his sanity, biting at the edges of his mind, he just begs, “I need to stop him.” 

And if he has to go through Aaray to do it, then so be it. Alfred raises his chin, the simmering raw power within him burning beneath his skin. He doesn’t notice that his knights step back, nor the blue-violet glow of furled markings across his hands, beneath his clothing, climbing his cheeks. He doesn’t see what it does to his eyes, nor that the adequate light of the tunnel is suddenly nothing by comparison. 

All he sees is Aaray standing in the way, and the midnight-blue lettering glowing, tracing across the door’s threshold. He can’t read it, but he knows he can banish it. He feels it crackle beneath his fingertips as he kneels and brushes it away. His fingers bleed, but the lettering fades. “If you will not move, I will move you,” he tells Aaray. 

Aaray doesn’t—

“Thank Time.”

He steps aside. Alfred rushes passed him, following the trailing blue letters of Arthur’s magic. He doesn’t think that he’s never seen it clearly until now, nor that he shouldn’t leave his guardians behind so recklessly. He doesn’t feel the itching presence of Spades’ Will in his mind, only a clarity of purpose that guides him to the center of that web of magic.

To a room that stinks of blood and urine and fear. Arthur stands the moment that Alfred opens the door, dropping his teacup back onto its saucer. That dark blue light flashes in patterns across the floor and across the skin of the man seated before him, chained to a steel chair with jagged edges and exposed pins that are rusted red. The man in that chair looks back at Alfred, stricken fear in his eyes before Arthur reaches out to him, draws glowing letters in the air before his face, and he collapses like a puppet with its strings cut. 

Alarmed, Alfred lurches forward, catching the man’s head before it knocks against the chair. He feels a pulse under his fingers, thank Time, but the man is….

His ears and nose are bleeding. His fingernails look scorched. This is what… this is his fault… this….

“Alfred, what are you doing here?”

Arthur looks so calm as he kneels at Alfred’s side and reaches to help him up. He looks bewildered, even a little honestly pleased, which seems insane considering. 

Alfred lets Arthur pull him to his feet, and catches him before he rounds the table again with a pleasant, “I didn’t expect you; let me make you a cup of tea.” 

As if they aren’t standing in a prison in front of a man who has clearly been tortured by Arthur’s own hand. Catching Alfred staring back at Arthur’s victim (Time, he recognizes this man, he thinks. Blond hair, round face, but without his usual smile, isn’t he—), Arthur smiles. “I’ll have answers soon. I should have brought him in earlier. Of course he knows where Clubs’ spies are hiding.” 

Alfred grips Arthur’s arm tight and tells him, “This needs to stop.” 

Arthur freezes. The air around them crackles, midnight and blue, black and violet. Arthur hisses suddenly and tries to jerk his arm out of Alfred’s grasp. “My King, what are you… this is for the nation’s sake and safety, I can’t just….”

“This needs to _stop_.” 

“Arthur.”

Something bleeds into Arthur’s expression as he turns. That placid, pleasant façade peels away, a mask that shreds in the sound of a voice. Arthur tries to pull away again, but Alfred holds him, feels his strength give. 

Two years, five months, and twenty-seven days ago they met facing each other in reverse, two Queens drawing a line between the madness of their nation’s corrupted Mind and sanity. In the doorway, Honda Kiku moves to enter the room, his eyes on Arthur’s. 

Horror. That’s what it is, the look in Arthur’s eyes. 

Recognition. 

Realization. 

“You should listen to your King.”

Arthur stumbles. Alfred catches him. Pulls him up and recognizes the way he’s shaking. Recognizes the sudden presence Arthur must feel in his mind, the conflicting thoughts, the temptations whispering in his ear to hunt and kill and burn Clubs to the ground. 

Or maybe it whispers to him differently: an insidious logic that tells him what he is doing is right, rationalizes every choice he’s made, promises him certainty and safety and righteousness. 

Alfred realizes that he has done this to Arthur. That by giving into Spades’ Will he has twisted its Mind with lies that sound like truths to the fearful. That sound like necessities to the desperate. He can’t make up for it, nor the damage he has caused allowing it to be unleashed. 

“Alfred.” Kiku kneels at Alfred’s side as Arthur tries to claw at the side of his face, a desperate whispered chant of _no, no, no,_ on his lips. 

_“What did I do?”_

Alfred fears Arthur isn’t coherent enough to hear the answer. 

Kiku brings out his brush and writes those invisible letters on Arthur’s skin. They glow the same clear blue as Alfred’s magic. “He needs to be removed from here,” Kiku tells him. “It took me several weeks to recover my wits entirely, even after I was aware how my mind had been twisted. I cannot tell you if there is more you can do to assist him, for my King was dead.”

“Could Ludwig do anything?” Kiku’s new King, could he have helped? Did he help? 

“His presence eased my mind, yes.” But Alfred knows it couldn’t vanish his pain entirely. Arthur feared this, the loss of his sanity, so much. And Alfred did that to him anyway. 

“Hey.” 

The man in the chair moves. Startled, Alfred first clutches Arthur tighter, but then realizes there is no reason to fear. Arthur’s victim is still restrained, though apparently aware again. Did his consciousness return when Arthur’s magic faded?

“He okay?” That voice sounds broken, but clear. Time, Alfred needs to help him out of here. He could have died! Thank Time he’s still here; how many others aren’t?

Alfred passes Arthur’s half-conscious form to Kiku as his knights begin to file into the room, wary but less so now that the danger has clearly passed. Aaray kneels at Kiku’s side and brushes his fingers against Arthur’s forehead as Alfred stands and pulls himself in front of Arthur’s victim. 

Felix, that’s his name. The court tailor. Time Almighty.

“I’m gonna get you out of here,” Alfred tells him. He grips the chains holding Felix down and just tears them apart, not even noticing how they just crumble at his touch. “You’re safe.”

“Sure.” Felix laughs. Like he’s a little mad. “Sure, we’re all safe. Hey I thought you went crazy too.” 

Alfred swallows. “I think I got better.” 

“Better do more than think.”

Alfred wishes he could. When he can feel that insidious darkness that has infected his people’s Will through their fear and rage, he can’t just pretend he’s entirely safe. He can’t afford complacency; if it captures him again there’s no telling who might suffer the consequences.

“I can take him.” Xiao Chun helps Alfred pull Felix out of that chair. He shifts the tailor’s sagging form against him, pulling his arm over his shoulder. “May I borrow Kyle and Olive? We can return to the Court’s Shelter more quickly together.” 

Alfred allows it. He can’t imagine who could be so foolish as to strike them here, with two Queens and a King present, even if Arthur is in no condition for combat. “Check the rest of the facility. Make sure no one else is stuck in this Time forsaken place. Call in whatever assistance you need for anyone you find.”

He returns to the problem of his Queen, who he has hurt so badly. 

“Sir?” Felix’s broken voice distracts Alfred. In Xiao Chun’s care, he grins a half-mad grin. “Didn’t want to tell him, ‘cause I didn’t know what’d happen if I did, but… Clubs’ Ambassador. He’s a friend of mine.”

Alfred remembers the man. A loyalist to the core. So much so that he helped Clubs’ Queen into their country, but he also….

….warned Arthur that Matthew was in danger. Warned him in time for Arthur to be there to confront Ivan when he attacked. Time, why didn’t Arthur tell him when he should have?

“He wants what’s best for Clubs,” Felix tells him. “I think he might be ready to see their Revolutionary Government isn’t it.”

Revolutionary?

How much about Clubs don’t they know?


End file.
